


The Inappropriate Love of ANBU Weasel

by skaralding



Series: Uchiha Itachi is Gaara's aniue?! [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst with a Happy Ending, Consensual Underage Sex, Fluff and Angst, Incest Kink, M/M, No Uchiha Massacre, Slice of Life, Time Travel, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-09-25 05:12:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 21,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17115152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skaralding/pseuds/skaralding
Summary: After completing the bloody tasks necessary to prevent a dark future, Itachi is more or less prepared to drift through life on semi-permanent vacation. Gaara decides that this means Itachi can finally belong to him, in every way that matters.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 'Incest kink' tag added at a later date due to it being a thing in the sex scenes later on, wrt honorifics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll definitely want to read _The Return of ANBU Weasel_ first; this story picks up exactly where that one left off. Note that I've tagged this with just the Naruto fandom because the slight hints of Harry's reincarnation are even slighter here.
> 
> Lastly, for more specific details re the warnings, please see the endnotes.

Itachi dearly wants to stick around for a day or two to see how well Sasuke is taking the fact that he didn’t make chunin on his first try. But since Itachi also knows better than to exceed the rough twenty-four hour time limit he usually gives himself for visits in Konoha, he doesn’t let himself linger.

Twenty-four hours is about two or three whole shift changes of in-village patrol. Taking longer than that to do whatever he came for means having to bed down somewhere for a little bit, which exponentially increases the risk that he’ll be spotted or sensed. He sleeps poorly in uncertain territory, so that’s a third reason not to try his luck.

He still wants to. The hardest thing about cutting ties with the village is how he has to learn nearly everything of interest to him second- or third-hand, and how what he learns doesn’t always tell the full story. Sasuke, though he is the Uchiha heir and the brother to an infamous nuke-nin, is nowhere near important enough to be gossiped about the way he was Before, so Itachi has found himself relying on guesswork and close, silly-feeling observation of the photos littering Sasuke’s bedroom.

Tonight, the framed photo of Naruto’s team in what looked to be their fresh chunin jackets had been set face down on Sasuke’s side table, and Sasuke’s own team photo had been taken out of it’s frame and crumpled on his desk. The implication of those things is fairly simple to work out: Itachi can very easily imagine any reminder of Naruto’s success being too grating to Sasuke’s nerves just now, and since Sasuke’s teammates both lost their sadly unlucky match-ups, it isn’t much of a surprise that he might also be smarting over that.

It’s one thing to pick these little details up from snooping around, though, and quite another to hear them directly from the source. But since Itachi cannot have the latter, he has learned to make do with the former, no matter how much it irritates him.

* * *

It isn’t at all surprising, then, that on the way out of Konoha, Itachi’s concentration is not quite at its peak. Just past the new inner barrier ring, he realizes Gaara’s sand eye is tailing him, and has probably been doing so for quite some time. Sighing, Itachi slows, and eventually stops in one of the densely wooded outlying training grounds, his feet swinging as he settles into an unsteady seat on the branch of the tallest Hashirama tree there.

“You look just like that Uchiha,” is the first thing Gaara says, accusingly. “You– you’re a _nuke-nin_.”

“You already knew I was a nuke-nin,” Itachi points out, raising his eyebrows, taking off his tinted glasses and letting them dangle between the lax grip of two fingers. “Why do you think I wear these things?”

“You didn’t say you were from here,” Gaara says, frowning directly at him, his sand platform having brought him to Itachi’s level. “Or from _them_. You’re– you’re–”

“Uchiha don’t have the best reputations, I know.”

“The Black Hand?” Gaara hisses. “Really, Aniue?”

Itachi puts his glasses back on, smiling ruefully. “Would you believe I didn’t want you to think ill of me?”

Gaara’s hard stare is all the answer he needs.

“I wasn’t always called that,” Itachi tries. “I certainly wasn’t always S-ranked.”

(It happened slower, this time. Mostly because Konoha didn’t put nearly as high of a bounty on his head to begin with. And because while he was methodically carving through the Akatsuki members that wouldn’t listen to reason, he only ever approached them in out-of-the-way places, and made a point to turn in their bounties through a proxy.)

Gaara just _looks_ at him, again, and Itachi ducks his head a little, smiling awkwardly. “Aniue, you should have told me.”

“I was planning on–”

“You weren’t,” Gaara says, and for a moment, his obstinate, no-bullshit tone is so much like– too much like–

(Someone he desperately loved.)

Itachi finds himself grinning through the pleasure-pain of that moment, that lack of remembrance. He can’t look at Gaara now. “All right, fine. I’m sorry, Gaara-kun.”

He’s not expecting it when Gaara’s sand grasps him, dragging him off the branch and onto the suddenly wider platform, until he’s on his back, splayed and imprisoned at Gaara’s feet.

“When I am Kazekage,” Gaara says, “you will be the Black Hand of the Desert.” His tone is so serious, so uncompromising that Itachi doesn’t know what to make of the slight smile that accompanies it. “Well?”

“Uh…” Itachi _could_ cut his way out of the sandy fist curled around him, but then that would be another thing to apologize for. “Gaara-kun, that’s not–”

“I’m still a demon to them,” Gaara says. “Won’t it be reasonable, for a demon to take a demon as his guard?”

“The patrol will pass this point in seven minutes,” Itachi says, flexing carefully within Gaara’s hold. “I cannot be seen–”

“Say you’ll guard me.”

“Gaara–”

“Aniue, say it.” Gaara is no longer looming over him; he’s crouched down to murmur his demand right in Itachi’s face, and _that_ is Not Good. Gaara is flushed, and he won’t back down, and Itachi can see his hands are in shaking fists. “Aniue, please.”

Even that sounds like a demand, and Itachi doesn’t like the fact that he’s bending, a little, inside.

(Gaara is _not_ his brother. He is suddenly all too aware of that.)

“I’ll consider it,” he says, stiffly, and is glad that all Gaara does is frown and hand him his glasses. “See you at New Years’?”

Gaara nods, and sand slides down from around them, until they are both back on the ground, Itachi suppressing a stupid shiver at the feel of it. It’s not– he’s not having thoughts. Of anything.

Gaara watches him leave, and Itachi feels his not-brother’s burning, beseeching gaze on his back until he’s miles from Konoha. He pushes on and on and on until he’s in Taki, downstream from a bustling tourist town that has a top-class brothel, one that discreetly serves both genders and many different tastes, only to find that he can’t bear to go in.

Itachi stews for a week in that town, eating too much dango, cursing the fact that his favourite worker at any brothel has often– always, all right, always– been a redhead.

Before, he had far too little time to be picky; he was sick, and driven, and burning from within, and his few attempts at sexual intimacy had been short and hurried. He’d ended up with a shaky arrangement with Kisame just to tide himself over the dry spells.

Here, he has too much time. Here, Kisame is still a respected jonin in Kiri, and far too wary of the Black Hand to even begin to consider any unprofessional entanglements.

Itachi doesn’t even know if he wants Gaara, or… whoever it is that Gaara reminds him of. And then there’s the fact that Gaara is– himself. The Kazekage’s son. Suna’s jinchuuriki. And _thirteen_.

It’s hopeless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning chat:**  
>  _Underage_ warning is because Gaara and Itachi will eventually hook up when Gaara is 15.
> 
> Aaand now that I read this again I guess the very last hints of the HP crossover from the prequel are mostly in here?? Welp.


	2. Chapter 2

Brooding and fuming at himself only works to distract Itachi for so long. A month after the chunin exams finds him in deep cover, masquerading as a half-Uchiha prostitute in Kusa. In the two weeks he spends in an inn there, he learns– alright, admits– that he really does enjoy men too, and not just as a convenient substitute. He doesn’t know what to feel about the fact that he’s– working, no, _faithfully_ working the equivalent of a seduction mission.

He used to flinch from that sort of thing, Before. Not because of the usual reasons, the obvious, expected ones, but because…

He likes sex, even when it’s… like that. He would have made faces, all while Fugaku paced up and down and ranted, and he would have _said_ it was disgusting, but he’d have felt a secret, awful thrill at being _ordered_ to go out of his way to suck an older man’s cock, or bury his fingers in an older woman’s cunt.

For this self-assigned mission, he muddles along by pretending to be female, hoping that the usual preconceptions will make Orochimaru’s agents less wary of his cover identity. It works almost too well; the night after a rollicking local festival, Itachi wakes up in chakra-suppressing cuffs, in a dark, coffin-like box on the back of a cart.

He nearly gives it away by laughing instead of weeping hysterically as they drag him out into the harsh fluorescent lighting of one of Orochimaru’s bases. He’s very, very careful with the genjutsu he hooks into place while they (try to) rough him up.

Aching, his chakra starting to twinge from being so closely (uselessly) confined to his body, he can at least manage to convey the right note of terror and despair when Orochimaru walks in.

“Well done, all of you,” he says, his voice still just the same as Itachi remembers. “Leave us.”

Shivering and quietly weeping, Itachi is not at all expecting the chakra cuffs to suddenly disengage, to fall from his wrists like loose bracelets.

“You are annoyingly persistent, Uchiha-san,” Orochimaru says. “I hope you will forgive the charade of your capture by my men.” His amused tone says that he cares not one bit for Itachi’s forgiveness. “I am afraid it was necessary,” it most definitely wasn’t, “for of course you cannot wish Konoha to know we have met.”

“Konoha is in my past,” Itachi says, sitting up with a slight (exaggerated) wince. “What they know or do not know about me is irrelevant.”

“Is that so?” Orochimaru truly sounds interested by this. “How curious.”

“I am curious too,” Itachi says, slowly rising to his feet. Orochimaru’s men left him only a threadbare yukata, once they were done; weeks of required nakedness and months (years) of worse indignities make Itachi uncaring of the fact that his clothing is torn and bloody and gaping loose. “I wish to know why you no longer seek the Sharingan.”

“I am not aware that I have ever desired the Sharingan, Uchiha-san,” Orochimaru says, sounding just a touch offended. “Who has been feeding you these–”

Itachi _moves_ , and the battle is on. Orochimaru seems amused, exasperated and annoyed all at once; initially, he only bothers to defend.

He is, as always, a liar. When Itachi shifts his eyes to their highest evolution, Orochimaru’s focus sharpens, and his attacks grow harder to evade, testing Itachi’s rate of response.

“Yes,” Itachi breathes. “My eyes are Eternal.”

“Excuse me?” Orochimaru says, blinking. “Of all the things to say, when trying to kill a man…” Then, and only then, does he become serious.

It is already too late.

The seals clustered on Itachi’s left hand have grown in size and detail, until his pale flesh is barely visible beneath a forest of dark, writhing marks. Orochimaru has been watching that hand, and watching Itachi’s nose rather than look into his spinning eyes, and he seems to think Itachi’s ultimate plan is to pin him down and touch him, to seal power away from him that way.

Orochimaru chuckles after each cut he manages to place on Itachi’s shivering, panting body. He doesn’t seem to understand that blood– blood freely spilled– is dangerous.

Then again, no one alive in this universe understands that. To Itachi’s unceasing benefit.

“Fuuin,” Itachi finally gasps, and the pattern his blood has made on the floor _screams_ into view, warping about the both of them. Orochimaru leaps– tries to leap out, away– and the lines simply follow him.

Itachi grins as his enemy, _Sasuke’s_ enemy, Sasuke’s torturer, enticer, jailer, confidant and corrupter, writhes in agony. “I call on debt,” Itachi says, unsteadily. “Blood calls to blood, and life to death.”

Around them, there is a growing, uneasy shimmering in the air. Orochimaru, twisted, halfway transformed, can only spare the heavy atmosphere a glance or two. Nothing forms– _good_ , Itachi thinks, because something in him knows that it would take quite a lot of desperate effort to lay to rest whatever tangible form Orochimaru’s many victims might have taken.

So yes, nothing forms. Even so, Orochimaru is dying. Peeling away, screaming as his chakra is consumed by the vengeance seal, by the heaviness in the air, and by the cracked stone of the floor beneath them. He is not quite yet what he had become, Before, so it does not even take quite as long as Itachi was expecting.

Orochimaru’s body falls to the floor, but it is no longer his. A solidly built woman stares up at Itachi through glassy grey eyes, and all that is left of Orochimaru is the shifting, settling pattern of dried blood on the woman’s skin.

Shaking, Itachi approaches. He wants to be sure.

The woman… she’s scarred. She has muscled shoulders, stern, proud features, and dull green clan markings he faintly recognizes. He deactivates his Sharingan, resolved to do what he can to find her family, to inform them.

Then, after he’s caught his breath and sealed up his worst wounds, Itachi burns her body, and spreads his black flame so that it will fill the room after he shunshins away.

His final act is to draw a messy black circle around the entire hidden compound, and set a careful measure of the inverse of his flames into a drop of the seal ink on the ground.

No one he wishes to die will escape.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s a year before Itachi sees Gaara again. Or, more correctly, before Gaara sees _him_.

Itachi can only thank the gods that he was already in the habit of breaking into the Kazekage’s tower now and then to leave notes, gifts, postcards. He kept that up, and knew it wouldn’t be enough, and still kept on avoiding the issue, because…

Gaara has gotten taller. Has shot up, and is growing out his (familiar) red hair, and is looking both more and less like the hard-edged young man Itachi faintly remembers from Before.

He looks worryingly good, even though his hair is at an awkward length, and in no kind of hairstyle. He’s a little thin, probably from the growth spurt, but that looks good on him, too. There is a slumped pile of sand in his bed, a long, vaguely person-shaped lump that Gaara has slung an arm around in his sleep, and the overall picture is cute, and _cute_ , and Itachi looks for just a little too long, long enough that the sixth sense that Gaara is developing wakes him up before Itachi can drape a genjutsu around himself.

He sees the moment Gaara sees that it is him.

He feels the shifting of a sand tendril loosening its swift grip on his left ankle.

Perhaps that’s why he decides to do something stupid, something other than standing there and smiling and charming his angry not-brother into forgiving him for staying out of touch.

Gaara’s eyes are narrowed, and the sand pile beside him is dissolving into a disquieting haze in the air; he’s definitely angry. Too angry to think anything of the fact that Itachi approaches him. He glares up at Itachi, refusing to shift an inch when Itachi sits down beside him on the bed.

“Aniue,” he says, his voice scratchy from sleep, but otherwise toneless, “you’re _late_.”

“I am,” Itachi says, leaning in over him, unable to keep from stroking his fingers through Gaara’s messy, slightly sweaty hair. “Why did you let this grow so long?”

Sand closes around both of Itachi’s feet. “Why are you late?”

Itachi can’t help but smile. “You know I’ve been busy.” Mostly with making sure every last trace of Orochimaru is wiped from the face of the earth. He’s saving Anko for when he’s certain he’s dealt with all the obvious bases and experiment victims; he’s not sure he’ll like the fallout from whenever he kidnaps her to remove her seal, but he’s going to do it anyway. “I’m sorry.”

He’s expecting the usual, for Gaara to narrow those green (wrong) eyes at him and say something blunt and disparaging. He’s not expecting Gaara to frown, to jerk his hair out of reach of Itachi’s hand, and then to sit up abruptly enough that Itachi doesn’t have time to shift back, shift away.

Like this, they’re mostly the same height, and he can see too much of Gaara’s face, his long lashes and pale skin, his far too serious expression. Moving away is a good idea, an _excellent_ idea that Itachi can’t follow through on, because Gaara will _notice_ –

“Aniue, do you not want to be my hand?”

“Uh. Your– your hand?”

“Guard,” Gaara says, his voice rising a little. Itachi can’t tell if that’s because Gaara’s embarrassed that he said it wrong, or because he’s embarrassed by how suggestive that sounded, combined with how close they are right now. “I meant guard.”

“Hn.” _Now_ , Itachi can move away– lean away, really, if only just a little, because it’ll look like he’s relaxing, rather than running away. “I’m not sure that it would be a good idea.”

“You can’t go back to Konoha,” Gaara says, leaning forward. “They don’t want you back.”

“They might–”

“You murdered an elder.” Clearly, the clan has managed to keep it quiet about the _other_ elders Itachi found it necessary to excise. “You don’t interfere with their missions, but you don’t help them, either. You’re too strong for them to trust you again, even if you went back, so–”

“And I suppose Suna will be completely different?”

Thankfully, that makes Gaara lean back, his chin coming up, his arms crossing in front of his chest. Unfortunately, it also means that Itachi becomes suddenly and abruptly aware that Gaara is wearing a flimsy white linen robe that’s no better than nothing at all. “Technically,” Gaara says, his tone gaining a triumphant edge, “ _I_ would be your guard.”

_More like my temptation,_ Itachi thinks, now starting to be really quite annoyed with himself. For all that he has mentally been complaining about how close Gaara is, he’s still just sitting there, enduring (enjoying) it. “I fixed your seal,” Itachi says, evenly. “Rendering you incapable of keeping me here would be easier than that.”

“ _We_ know that, but the council doesn’t.” Gaara still sounds triumphant. “None of your targets have been jinchuuriki; everyone will assume I can stop you.”

“You can’t,” Itachi says, his tone flat, because it isn’t supposed to feel like just another chain on him, but it does. Even if Gaara was not fourteen and years (decades?) too young, Itachi would still feel uncomfortable with this irrational, dizzying surge of _want_ , because Itachi is used to being (mostly) equal in strength with his lovers.

“People will think I can stop you,” Gaara says. “That’s all that matters, and you know it.”

There are many more arguments Itachi can make, starting with the fact that Konoha has its own damned jinchuuriki to pretend to guard him with, but if he sits here any longer–

“I was right,” Gaara says, his tone low and dark. “You don’t– you know it could work, but you won’t consider it.”

“Gaara–”

“You don’t want to be with me.”

He couldn’t have intended it to sound like– like that. “Gaara, that is not–”

“If there was a way to stay with your brother,” Gaara says, his voice a low, disturbing hiss, “your _real_ brother–”

“ _Gaara._ ”

Gaara pointedly shifts back an inch, but he keeps his fervent green gaze fixed on Itachi. The haze of sand in the room has gotten stronger; his hands have formed into fists on top of the dark cotton blanket protecting his lower half from Itachi’s prurient scrutiny. He opens his mouth, but does not speak again.

“You are not my brother,” Itachi finds himself saying, “but you are still mine.” When Gaara gives him a wordless, furious, disbelieving look, he cannot help but reach out and drag him into a hug. “You’re _mine_ , understand?”

It’s not a good hug. It’s– both of them are a little too stiff. Gaara is trembling, and just this side of unyielding, and it feeds terrible, hungry thoughts in Itachi, it makes him wonder what he would have to do to Gaara to make him nice and limp.

Itachi is careful to let none of those wicked thoughts come through in the way his fingers card through Gaara’s hair, in the way his other arm keeps up a comforting pressure around Gaara’s stiff, narrow shoulders.

He does not lick his lips, even as he thinks about what it would feel like to steal a kiss.

“I don’t understand.” Gaara says that against his chest, his tone low. Mutinous.

(Desperate.)

“It’s simple,” Itachi says, warmly, his tone deliberately light. “I’m your aniue, and you,” and here, he squeezes the back of Gaara’s neck, because he can’t help himself, “are _my_ Gaara.”

Even though he can’t see Gaara’s face, he knows, _knows_ Gaara is scowling. But at least the bite goes out of the air around them, and the press of his forehead against the side of Itachi’s neck starts feeling less like grit and more like skin.


	4. Chapter 4

After that horribly awkward visit with Gaara, Itachi can’t _not_ go back to Konoha.

Years ago, he told himself hugs were only for brothers, but somehow he’d never thought to wonder why he felt so strongly about that. Why he was thinking of hugging anyone but Sasuke, and what it might mean.

Itachi, in this time, was not nearly as standoffish as he was Before; it wouldn’t have fit well with his easy social persona at the Academy. Back slaps, arms slung loosely around a friend’s shoulders, punches in the side, he never flinched from any of it.

He still didn’t _hug_ anyone. Anyone his age didn’t want to be hugged, anyway; the one time Homura Ryuu had cried in front of him, the other boy had simply sat stiffly at his side, shaking, struggling to swallow each sound. Their shoulders had touched, and it had been awkward, but not in an uncomfortable way, because Itachi had known he was doing all he could.

(It had been strangely reassuring, Before, learning exactly what kind of touch was proper.)

Sasuke and, to an extent, Mother, were his exceptions. Mother hugged Itachi, but never for long, and always lightly. Sasuke was a limpet right up until Danzo’s expiration, though he usually didn’t try to wrap himself around Itachi in public, by then.

Gaara, on the other hand…

Itachi had wanted to hug him, back then, and had bargained his way out of it. Perhaps that unconscious, early avoidance is why he’s still thinking about the way their recent hug felt, even as he sneaks past the barriers, past the guards, past the Uchiha compound perimeter.

(He can’t help but feel smug when he notices yet another house with the uchiwa stencilled on its cheerful green door, markedly _outside_ the compound.)

Maybe if Itachi had unbent a little, and given into his urge to try the occasional friendly hug, he would already be inoculated against thoughts of Gaara’s sweaty, spicy smell.

It’s wrong that he already knows (loves) how Gaara _smells_. He doesn’t know why his brain keeps on making him think of it, making him draw in breath after breath and remember, and feel–

“Ancestors be damned,” someone says, their voice shocked, slurred, and horribly familiar. “Is that– Itachi?”

It’s Izumi, her head bowed, her back hunched over to an unnatural degree, until Itachi realizes the darkened lump is someone else that she’s carrying on her back. Drunk, or at least very tipsy, Izumi stops her former, trudging stride, swaying a little, blinking her big black eyes over at him like he is some kind of monstrous apparition.

“Ah,” Itachi says, quietly, because they’re in the compound, in the alley behind the commercial row, and he doesn’t know what to do. “Evening, Izumi-san.”

She blinks again, hard. Then she tries to straighten up, and fails, because the drunken shinobi she’s carrying chooses that moment to mumble something out loud and shift around heavily on her back, and thankfully the moment of confusion that causes is just long enough.

“Ugh,” Izumi mutters. “I swear, Naoto, this is the last time I– wait. Didn’t– wasn’ he just…?”

Itachi, cloaked as deeply and thoroughly as he can be, loses no time heading to the main house, now feeling annoyed with himself. And, uncharitably, with Izumi, even though she hadn’t been walking particularly quietly. He should have heard her in time to keep out of her way.

It’s cost him time. Even if Izumi thinks she’s drunk, and just hallucinating things, she’ll probably try to check in with one of the patrols, whether before or after dumping Naoto (Chieko-oba’s oldest? Or was it youngest?) at home. Itachi no longer has a guarantee of at least a half hour to poke around in Sasuke’s room, or to just watch him for more than a moment.

He hates it.

_You can’t go back to Konoha,_ he hears Gaara say, again, his matter-of-fact tone like a kunai in the belly. _They don’t want you back._

It isn’t fair that Gaara could say that, could just _say_ the words like they meant something, but not everything. It isn’t fair that Gaara followed that up with his usual, crazily intense stare, accusing Itachi of not wanting to be with him, when Gaara is now about the _only other thing_ Itachi has that isn’t in his storage seals, or in Konoha.

The only other thing he can still have.

He doesn’t want to be Gaara’s friendly, caring, not-quite-imaginary Aniue. He wants to hold Gaara beneath him, see the startlement in his eyes when he steals his first kiss. If he can’t have that– if he is stuck playing an old, purely friendly role, while painstakingly worming his way out of exile–

“Goodbye for now, otouto,” Itachi says, to Sasuke’s gently snoring form, because it is all he can say. He tightens the genjutsu. He lays his hand on Sasuke’s partially exposed forehead, and wants, more than anything, for it to be possible to stay, and stay _now_.

He leaves on time.

Usually, each departure makes his heart feel tight and angry and stretched, as if part of it is behind him in that blasted house. This time, though…

This time, his heart was already stretched, already hurting, already strange, even before he entered the main house again. He despises the feeling, but he lets it drive him, lets it guide his path very nearly back the way he came.


	5. Chapter 5

Secretly, though Gaara knows that the first step toward his aniue’s debut as an aspiring shinobi of Sunagakure will likely be a tense, dreary, and unmistakably formal occasion, he likes to imagine something different. Something private.

Gaara’s ANBU would spot Aniue at the gate, and bring him in due to Gaara’s order as Kazekage. Or, instead, there’d be a note, something slipped into a briefing, or handed in alongside some vital intelligence, and Gaara would have to follow up on it in person. He would go to some secret, shadowed corner of the village, his ANBU trailing behind him, their auras tight with disapproval, and then Aniue would ooze out of the heaviest shadow, smiling that small, superior smile of his when the ANBU guards twitched.

The ANBU would all be impressed, both by Aniue’s stealth, and Gaara’s utter lack of fear of his presence. They would come away from that first meeting thinking better of their new Kazekage.

Somehow, the way it actually happens is both better and worse.

Better, because instead of happening some vague, hazy time years in the future, it happens just a year or so after Aniue’s last, horribly awkward visit.

Worse, because… well. What happens is ridiculous.

Instead of taking place in some shadowed, stinking alley, or on the edges of one of the ominous underground training areas Aniue used to chase Gaara in until he couldn’t breathe for laughter, the encounter takes place on the lushly veiled roof of Suna’s only luxury hotel.

Instead of happening due to some clear, official sign, such as Aniue being seen at the gates, or having slipped Gaara a message through covert, but equally official channels, it almost feels like the whole thing happens by chance. If Gaara didn’t know very well that his boring B-rank of in-village patrol was scheduled at varying, random times, he might even have believed it wasn’t planned, wasn’t meant to happen.

It takes him a long, long moment to reconcile the shadowed, smiling form of Aniue with the brightly clad young man lounging in a beach chair at the end of a row of them a stone’s throw from the hotel pool.

“What?” Baki says, from beside Gaara, his tone sharp with impatience. Then, when Gaara silently eyes him, still shocked, he adds, in sign, ‘Why the hell have we stopped?’

Then the man that Gaara can’t quite believe is his aniue moves, stretching a little, and the long, gaudily patterned sleeve of his sky blue yukata falls back just enough that the seals tattooed into his skin are too obvious to overlook.

‘Intruder ahead,’ Gaara signs back, his sand platform already moving them closer, up and over the heads of tensing, wide-eyed hotel patrons. Immediately, the three ANBU that usually shadow his patrol for this segment draw closer, taking up positions on opposite ends of the roof. ‘Engage?’

Sand is rising thickly in the air around them, powered by Gaara’s agitation. It makes the lone hotel guard’s stuttered order for evacuation of the roof entirely moot; the only people that aren’t edging away or nearly running for the gilded doors of the elevator are Gaara, Baki, the three ANBU creeping into better attack vectors, and– of course– Aniue.

Something about the way Aniue is just sitting there is… off. It’s not until he lifts his cocktail glass to his lips that Gaara realizes that what’s bothering him is the fact that his aniue doesn’t seem to be taking this tense situation at all seriously.

‘Wait,’ Baki signs, emphatically, followed by, ‘let me down’, and so Gaara has to bite the inside of his lip and lower his sand platform enough that Baki can smoothly step down. When Baki wants off in a hurry, he tends to vault off by himself, so that slow step means this is going to be done the formal, measured way, bizarre as it is to do so while the other party sits reclined in a beach chair, still sipping a little from the cocktail in his hand.

By now, Gaara has tightened his control on his sand, filtering it out of the air and compacting it around himself, even though there’s really no reason he’ll need an extra layer of armour. Baki would probably already have shot him a disapproving look for that, if he weren’t so busy staring down at Aniue.

“The Black Hand,” Baki says, after one long, tense pause. “Or do you prefer your given name?”

“Uchiha-san will do,” Aniue says, without so much as bothering to look up. “They haven’t exiled me yet, after all.”

“I must say, I’m quite curious what name we’ll find on your pass,” Baki says, his slight, thin smile entirely unamused, even as he gestures in the direction of the neatly stamped booklet that lies in the small serving tray to Aniue’s right. “Care to share?”

“Uchiha Itachi,” Aniue says, finally looking up. Though everyone tenses, expecting _something_ to happen, all Aniue does is beam at Baki. Gaara suddenly understands why his aniue doesn’t often smile this way; it makes him look crazy. “I admit, there may have been a little, ah, sleight of hand involved, but only because I didn’t want anyone to worry.” Baki opens his mouth, incredulous, but before he can say anything, Aniue is already continuing: “I _love_ holidays in Suna, you know. The lovely, dry heat, the drinks, the scenery…” Languidly, Aniue waves his half-empty cocktail glass around him, as if the nearly deserted hotel roof is the height of luxury. “Perfection.”

It isn’t his seal-encrusted hand that he’s waving, thank all the gods. Gaara is quite sure that if Aniue so much as twitched _that_ hand, Baki would do his best to try and cut it off with an excess of wind chakra. Not because it would help– others have tried it enough that the fact that Uchiha Itachi and his black hand _cannot be cut_ is in most of the bingo books– but because Baki is the sort of man that prefers to test these things for himself. He _would_ try, and he would be angry when he failed.

Not that he isn’t angry now. “Uchiha-san,” Baki says, even as the three ANBU guards tighten the rough circle they have formed around him, Gaara and Aniue, “you are not welcome here.”

“Eh?” Aniue doesn’t sit up– probably because it would mean things descending into a bloody, reckless fight if he moved more than was necessary– but the angle of his head and the disappearance of that dreadful smile somehow manages make it look as if he’s on alert. “Why not?”

“You are a nuke-nin,” Baki says, so emphatically that each word sounds like its own sentence. “State your actual business here in Suna, immediately.”

“I just said I was on vacation,” Aniue says, a small frown forming over the top of his dark, blocky sunglasses. “Think about it; if I _was_ up to something, would you have seen me out here, basking in the sun?”

That indirect insult may not be the last straw, but it is close enough that Gaara decides to step in. “Uchiha-san,” he says, and can’t quite keep from enjoying the way everyone around him goes still, “tell me why you’re here.”

Gaara doesn’t always like the caution his words, or even just his appearance, can still give rise to, but it’s useful right now. Or, at least, it _should_ be useful; everything he has learned from his teachers says that now is the time to be putting on a show of strength, inserting himself as a player in this grand charade.

Somehow, when Aniue’s gaze lands on him, Gaara feels instinctively that he’s made some kind of mistake. _It’s the sunglasses,_ he finds himself thinking. _Aniue usually takes them off._

This man looking up at him, this man deliberately looking him up and down… this isn’t Aniue.

This man, when he grins, is Uchiha Itachi. S-ranked. Named, avoided and feared, and very obviously amused.

“I _was_ only going to take the week off,” and doesn’t Aniue’s voice sound strange, in that man’s mouth? “Now… well. Perhaps I’ll stay just a little longer.”

“Uchiha-san,” Baki begins to say, his tone tight and just this side of murderous, and suddenly Uchiha-san is on the other side of the roof, guzzling down the last of that cocktail. “Hey–!”

“See you later,” Aniue’s voice says, from what feels like all around them, and though they pursue him, Gaara trailing the speeding, furious ANBU, who are barely managing to keep up with the enraged, cursing Baki, they do not catch up to him.

“He can’t have _disappeared_ ,” Baki snarls, hours later, after what feels like the entire ANBU division has crawled over every inch of both the hotel and the route Uchiha Itachi is believed to have taken out of the village. “No one is that good, especially not a fucking former tree-nin! He must have left some trace…”

Gaara can’t help but feel a little guilty, hearing that. Aniue and him used to play hide and seek, and, looking back, Aniue didn’t always let him win. Now, though, after years of sneaking in to see Gaara, and sneaking out again without leaving a trace, Gaara’s fairly sure Aniue has gotten the hang of ghosting his way through Suna.

Gaara feels especially guilty that, underneath the uncertainty and the slight, but potent embarrassment he feels at the way Aniue is probably going to play the infiltration, he feels excited. He knows Aniue will come to him, now. If not tonight, then soon.

He is looking forward to it.


	6. Chapter 6

Initially, Gaara cannot help but feel a spike of anticipation whenever a new, disquieting sign of Aniue’s presence is discovered. When ‘Uchiha Itachi’ is indeed found to be in the gate log, Gaara struggles not to smile at seeing that name set down in Aniue’s familiar, tidy hand, each stroke precise, each character perfectly proportioned.

The gate guards for every shift of the day of Aniue’s discovery in Suna are all found to be under a similar genjutsu: when asked to read Aniue’s name from the record, every single guard frowns, or blinks, or scowls, and says his name is too smudged, too shaky, or too messily written to be deciphered. When asked if they remember who that illegible signature belongs to, they all come up with similarly vague stories.

The civilian that signed– always a civilian, mind you– was a tired middle-aged man, or a drowsy older woman. Which is why their name is a little smudged and hard to make out, and anyway they signed again when asked, just to the right of the biggest smudge. Don’t you see it?

Then, as each hapless gate guard pointed at the supposed smudge, the neatly written name of Uchiha Itachi would light up with a subtle glow, and try to spread the genjutsu onto everyone in the interrogation room.

No one is sure whether that is the only genjutsu involved in covering the Black Hand’s tracks. Every attempt to force any part of the hidden seal matrix to reveal itself only ends up making whoever is trying it forget what they were just doing.

By the time Gaara decides he’s seen enough, there are three jittery Sealing Corps chunin scowling down at the gate log, and two jonin from the same corps arguing ferociously over whether the log should be studied or quarantined or reduced to ash. Hikawa-san, the current commander of the corps, is staring down at the log as if it were a primed exploding tag, but Gaara can tell that no matter what she decides, she won’t be forgetting the man who put them in this predicament in a hurry.

Even without leaving behind that ominously complex seal to remember him by, Aniue has made his mark in other ways. Though Uchiha Itachi was not found to have been checked in as a guest of _The Desert’s Bloom_ , the luxury hotel Aniue was spotted at, an aggressive screening of the hotel’s guest list soon turns up Maki Katsurou, a blond, severely dressed young man that packed his bags and checked out just moments after the village patrol’s confrontation with Uchiha Itachi. Maki-san, a frequent and generous guest, made himself so well-liked by the staff over the last few years that they are reluctant to even allow his name to be added to Baki’s list of suspicious persons.

Worse, the hotel guard that shooed away guests from the roof swore that Maki-san had been amongst the departing crowd. He had apparently been shaken enough to cut short his usual week-long stay, and had apologized nearly as much to the regretful hotel clerks as they in turn had apologized to him. His father, Maki-san had said, had been taken from him by a nuke-nin; he knew it was not their fault that one had been discovered on their roof, but as things were, he could not bear to stay.

He had refused to let them refund him for the room. He had apologized again, as he was leaving, for the very great inconvenience his premature departure would cause. His room, on examination, showed clear signs of having been stripped of anything that could be useful to a tracker, and his name on the check-out form was written in Aniue’s painfully neat hand.

After being made to understand that poor dear Maki-san was very likely the alter ego of the notorious Uchiha Itachi, the hotel manager is extremely upset. “He was always so proper,” the old man says, his tone pained, his expression tight with badly hidden emotion. “No wonder he wouldn’t take back the money.”

* * *

The next day, Gaara weathers his hastily announced confinement to the village by amusing himself with spying on Intelligence as they put together a comprehensive outline of Uchiha Itachi’s movements in Suna. He can’t help but feel a little smug, knowing what he does about the true reasons behind some of said movements.

For example, ‘Maki-san’ only popped up two years after Aniue repaired Gaara’s seal, and only then because Gaara was being moved back into the Kazekage’s tower. Before that, Aniue usually slept in Gaara’s room in Uncle Yashamaru’s house, which he’d said was tricky, but not impossible to get in and out of without being seen.

Intelligence almost comes to blows with Baki-sensei and the ANBU that were on the scene, all of them arguing furiously over which instance of Uchiha Itachi must have been the clone. Baki is bluntly certain that it was the man on the roof, mostly because he thinks no one could have been that calm and collected with their actual body surrounded by the best of Suna’s forces. Kitahara-san, the head of Intelligence, is adamant that it must have been ‘Maki-san’, and insists that any S-ranked nuke-nin would surely be able to appear that collected while under threat.

No consensus on which man was the clone is reached, but everyone in the room grimly agrees that it’s far too premature to think that this is the last they have seen of the original.

* * *

The days continue to pass, and Aniue’s file expands, gaining fine detail and more recent information on his habits. Gaara’s smug excitement begins to fade, replaced by an uneasy sort of irritation; it’s hard to keep feeling confident in Aniue’s grand plan when he hasn’t yet seen fit to pay Gaara a personal visit.

Maki-san turns out to be Aniue’s flashier mask in Suna. Morimoto Jirou is another, a quiet, unassuming merchant known to deal in spices and pottery. Morimoto-san, unlike Maki-san, stays only in modest inns, and has a much more regular schedule of comings and goings from the village. Well-liked, but forgettably so, his bland, blocky handwriting, unremarkable photograph and boring occupation only end up linked to Aniue due to the heroic efforts of the Sealing Corps, who somehow manage to cook up a containment seal that reliably disrupts the visual concealment layer of Uchiha Itachi’s hidden seals.

During a routine search of recently established foreign businesses, those hidden seals are found blooming on every page of Morimoto-san’s application for registration of Morimoto & Associates. They are also found on Morimoto-san’s application for a commerce pass, and on everything else that allowed him and his unseen– and probably nonexistent– associates to peddle his wares at either end of the small but steady route between Suna and Noheji, a large town in Rivers.

An examination of Morimoto & Associates’ neatly ordered books proves the company to be turning an honest profit; in fact, they do well enough in the spice trade that seizing their assets and shutting them down means a deluge of angry complaints from their customers, followed by a lot of finger-pointing over who should shoulder the cost and the blame.

* * *

Listening to the council arguing the fine points of what is coming to be known as ‘the Uchiha situation’ would be enough to put anyone to sleep, if not for the shouting matches that break out when two different ninja clan heads are forced to admit they _met_ Morimoto-san in passing, and suspected nothing. Under Father’s arctic gaze, those heads reluctantly agree that they cannot sanction either Intelligence or ANBU for having failed to discover Uchiha Itachi’s convoluted infiltration in time to prevent their clans from signing contracts with his fake company. His expertise with sealing is mentioned many times as a mitigating factor, and the conversation turns yet again to fruitless speculation on his motives.

However, as Gaara fidgets in his stiff-backed seat and fights to keep his expression blank, what torments him during the overlong meeting isn’t the repetitive subject matter. It isn’t even the fact that he, as jinchuuriki and the Kazekage’s son and heir, is required to be present, and also implicitly required to keep his mouth shut; while he wouldn’t say he _enjoys_ these meetings, he would still make every effort to attend them, half because he needs to cultivate a reputation as a dutiful future kage, and half because watching all the councilmen and women interact can be interesting. He’s always found watching their behaviour to be a fascinating, consequence-free way to see what happens when his teachers’ theories on appropriate forms of human interaction are thoroughly flouted.

No, what truly torments Gaara is the increasing, painfully obvious amount of proof that Aniue has been in Suna far more often than he’s ever suspected. And, worse, that whenever he’s in the area, he has other concerns to attend to than Gaara, other concerns he considers important enough to tend to regularly, unlike Gaara.

He isn’t an idiot. It’s… it used to be a worry of his, knowing that he’s not the most important thing to Aniue, at least not in the way Aniue has always been important to him. But it’s one thing to know about Aniue’s wretchedly uptight family, who are safely in Konohagakure and thus no real competition, and entirely another to realize that Aniue has been in Suna often enough that his business ties afford him an entrée to parties thrown by ninja clan heads.

It hurts. He can’t even tell himself that the way he met Aniue was unique; reading Aniue’s bingo book entry for the first time was enough to put paid to that. Included along with the many comments on his suspected abilities and his known proficiency with sealing was a brief, emphatic note on what Iwa termed a weakness, and Kumo termed an observation, that said that he was known to be unreliable against targets that are minors.

Further investigation made Gaara almost certain Aniue only drifted into his life due to a botched assassination. But the concrete fact that Aniue stayed by his side for weeks on end after said assassination still continued to make him feel that he must be special, and that if he isn’t the most important person to Aniue, then he is at least Aniue’s most important concern in Sunagakure, or perhaps even in the Land of Wind.

Realizing that that cannot be true lowers Gaara’s mood enough that his family becomes irritatingly wary of him.

(Gaara’s mood is not helped by the fact that, a week and a half after being discovered on that patrol, Aniue _still_ hasn’t visited him even once.)


	7. Chapter 7

Gaara’s unpleasant mood is not helped by the nearby C-ranks that are now all the village is willing to risk him on with such a potent threat still thought to be in the neighbourhood. Today’s mission is a routine delivery to Taiki, a town a three-day run from Suna, and the only good thing that can be said about it is that they are only guarding heavy scrolls, rather than a full caravan of civilians and their pack animals.

The run drifts by in tense silence. For once, Gaara’s not the only one on a hair trigger when they start out, and by the time they’re halfway through, even he’s starting to be a little unnerved by the general lack of non-mission conversation.

They deviate several times from the usual route to Taiki, and the pace Baki sets is a little harder than is strictly necessary. It makes the whole thing feel worryingly like they’re on the swift, pre-fight positioning run before a retrieval or a kill, which is a feeling Gaara only enjoys when he knows he’ll be free to shed blood whenever they finally reach where they’re going.

Even after they reach the town, and the handover to the sweating merchant that requested the scrolls goes well, Baki continues glaring at every shadow. Temari, unsurprisingly, follows suit, and Kankuro, usually a reliable source of inappropriately light-hearted nonsense, is instead very quiet and twitchy, the way he only gets when they are in real danger, or approaching a challenging fight.

It’s tiring just being around his team when they’re like this, too tiring for words, and it’s hot enough out here that Gaara can feel it through his armour. Even Aniue is wiping his forehead and grimacing a little.

Aniue, who is literally just _there_ , all of a sudden, _walking beside Gaara_.

“I forgot how dull deliveries can be,” Aniue says, in a low, amused tone that freezes the whole team in place for a moment, because not even Baki looks like he can say just when Uchiha Itachi fell into step with them. “Try to take more exciting missions, Gaara-kun; I can’t promise I’ll stay, if you don’t.”

And then he’s gone again, as if he was never there, and Kankuro is hyperventilating while Baki glares so hard at Gaara that he finds himself fighting the urge to take a step back. “You didn’t sense him?”

“Don’t you think I’d have _told_ you if I sensed him?” Gaara says, flatly, because he can smell a hint of Aniue’s aftershave, and he _still_ doesn’t know how the man can shield everything but that, all without leaving a trail, or even the slightest disturbance in the air. “He’s not S-ranked for nothing, sensei.”

Baki covers his eyes with a finely trembling hand for a moment. Then he lowers it, scowls at all of them and says, “Back to the village, _now_ ,” and they all scramble to follow.

Gaara is in front, and his chakra is threaded through everything for what feels like miles around, even though he knows it won’t do anything to help him catch a glimpse of Aniue. Aniue doesn’t like being tracked, doesn’t like being anything but a surprise, and sometimes Gaara really hates that about him.

It used to feel like Aniue was a figment of his imagination, or some spirit, some ugly sort of trick. The same kind of trick Shukaku had played on him, except worse, because he _wanted it back_ , he wanted to feel Aniue’s hand close around his own even if it wasn’t real. Seeing Aniue’s face in a bingo book during the chunin exams had been too sweet for words, for though it had meant there would be obstacles between them, the fact that there were several, worryingly large bounties on Aniue’s head had finally confirmed his miraculous existence.

But now, things are different. Aniue isn’t pretending to only be his anymore, isn’t even trying to slip past the doubled ANBU guard on the Kazekage’s tower. Gaara thought he would see his aniue two weeks and four days ago, and he is angry that things are turning out this way. He thinks Aniue might be trying to teach him some sort of twisted lesson, to get him to give up on the idea of having his aniue by his side for good.

Gaara is very worried the lesson will work.

* * *

A week later (three weeks and four days since the hotel), after being hastily restricted to doing in-village D-ranks that make Gaara want to start carving small holes through the chunin at the mission desk, the council finally decides that baiting Uchiha Itachi out into the open is probably best done outside the village. Possibly this decision has come about because of the impending full moon, and the one brief, unseasonal sandstorm that happened three nights ago, after Gaara woke to a familiar scent and an artfully wrapped package of daifuku.

He didn’t even get to have any; his ANBU guard spirited off the entire package without so much as a word. When questioned by Father, Gaara could barely hide how annoyed he was, and it meant his giving away, without quite meaning to, the fact that he’s received gifts of that nature before.

“It’s just one of my guards,” Gaara lied. “I’ve seen them before, it’s not– they’re just– Baki-sensei told me that people are shy, sometimes. About this sort of thing.” He wasn’t even being completely dishonest; Baki-sensei _had_ said Gaara could expect a lot of shyness on the part of anyone who took a liking to him. And early on, when Aniue wasn’t so good at creeping in completely unseen, he’d wear Suna-style wrappings around his lower face, which made him look like one of the ANBU guards. “Father? When they’re done with the tests, can I–”

“Absolutely not,” Father snapped. “You will not even so much as _smell_ any of that cursed daifuku, understand?”

“I meant,” Gaara said, through gritted teeth, “that I want the wrapping paper.”

If he had been thinking more clearly, he would have just bowed his head to Father and set about stealing the paper for himself; unfortunately, Gaara’s inopportune outburst only meant the immediate confiscation of the rest of the wrapping paper he’s received from Aniue this year.

The sandstorm, Shukaku’s way of reaching out to the world when Gaara was too angry with it to stop him, did not come as a complete surprise to Father, after all of that. The only thing that served to soothe Gaara’s temper was the thought, no, the knowledge that Father could not know precisely why Gaara was so angry.

That knowledge is not helping Gaara right now, as he falls into step with the rest of his team, having been assigned a long, pointless B-rank that may or may not end up drawing Aniue’s attention.

“That goatfoot Uchiha,” Temari is muttering, as they approach the village gates. “The next time I see that smirking pretty-boy’s face, I’m going to cut it in half.”

Kankuro is too depressed by the thought of a fortnight without showers or decent food to even so much as grunt in reply. The bulky, badly polished frame of Karasu the First is on his back, rather than the more nimble one of Karasu the Fourth, probably because the first thing Kankuro will do at the start of the kind of battle they’re hoping will happen is substitute with his puppet and hide behind its extra armour.

The mission they’ve been given is a B-rank in name only. There _are_ some suspiciously skilled bandits harrying Shiwa, but it’s not going to take a fortnight to trudge out there and get rid of them. A real genin team could probably have handled it; a jonin and three chunin are nothing short of overkill.

And that’s not counting the three ANBU Gaara can feel trailing after them as Uncle Yashamaru, who somehow managed to get himself assigned to ‘observe’ Gaara’s team, leads them all out onto the southern road. “Spare water-packs?” he asks them, as if Temari hadn’t already run down the pre-mission checklist three times. “Tents and tack all in order?”

“Yashamaru-san,” Aniue says, chidingly, “from what I can tell, they’re actually all a little over-prepared.”

He’s right beside Gaara _yet again_ , and of course he’s only bothered to reveal himself just after they passed out of best-effort throwing range of the ninjas on the walls.

Gaara doesn’t bother to stop. He doesn’t care about the way the trailing ANBU bound forward to surround them, and the way Kankuro freezes, and the way Yashamaru and Temari dart a step or two away, positioning themselves to attack at range. He just keeps on walking. He’s _had it_ , he’s going to hunt down the most skilled genjutsu user in Suna and threaten them until he can at least have a prayer of noticing whatever the hell Aniue does to not just hide, but reinsert himself into the fabric of reality like this.

“Gaara-sama,” Yashamaru says, his voice light, but tense. “If you could–”

“No.”


	8. Chapter 8

“Gaara,” Temari says, through gritted teeth, “get out of my way.”

“He can _see you_ ,” Kankuro says, even as Gaara opens his mouth to point out the same thing. “He’ll just dodge!”

“I’d certainly try,” Uchiha Itachi says, and of course it’s now that Gaara can hear the difference, can almost feel it. Aniue laughs readily, and smiles, but it’s always a little sad. Uchiha-san sounds like he’s never been unhappy in his entire life, like every single moment he breathes is full of some sort of terrible joy. “Please don’t attack, Temari-sama; I really quite like the pattern on this kimono.”

Naturally, Temari attacks. She picks her moment well, sending out an enormous, slicing blade of wind just as Gaara takes a larger than normal step forward.

Wind howls in his ears. Gaara calls up sand in a sluggish, too-slow wave, not quite sure of who to protect, or if it’s even possible to do so properly when there are this many players on the field. And then there’s the fact of how it would look, if one of the hard-packed sand walls that formed out of thin air ends up surrounding Uchiha Itachi, a nuke-nin that Gaara should by all rights despise.

Then Temari’s blade-wind dies down, and Gaara risks a shift to the left and a lowering of the sand shield swirling about himself (the safest choice), only to see Aniue looking sadly at a small rent in one of his brightly patterned sleeves.

Except for that little rent, he looks like sand and wind have not touched him.

The ANBU draw in closer. Kankuro moves his shaking hand one more inch toward the puppet on his back. Yashamaru’s fists sprout familiar, wicked-looking glass spikes. Temari unfolds one of her smaller fans, and her mouth is a flat, hard line.

Uchiha Itachi sighs, and slowly lowers into graceful, perfect seiza by the side of the road, twitching out a sewing kit from his other sleeve.

Or perhaps that kit unsealed from somewhere on his tattooed hand. He retrieved it so quickly that it’s anyone’s guess where the neat little black roll came from.

The roll unfolds in his lap. He selects a needle, and a tiny spool of grey thread, and sets to fixing the rent in his sleeve as if it is the only thing that matters, all while the high-strung ninjas surrounding him try to kill him with the collective force of their glares.

* * *

The rest of the trip is… strange, but not unpleasant. Several close calls come and go, most of them due to Uchiha-san ducking in a little too close to Gaara in order to ask him anxious, irritatingly solicitous questions.

It would be horribly embarrassing if Gaara wasn’t sure that the questions were well meant. He’s starting to see the way Aniue and Uchiha Itachi go together. Itachi hums a tuneless song under his breath, and never pulls so much as a hair ahead of their cloaked ANBU escort, even though he never once looks directly at them. Aniue reaches out to tug Gaara’s hood up and over his head just as the sun is almost at it’s highest point in the sky.

Aniue breathes in deep, and lets his breath out in a long, slow sigh. Itachi barely breathes whenever Kankuro, and, by definition, Karasu, are upwind of him. Aniue smiles faintly (proudly) at Gaara’s utter lack of footprints; Itachi widens that smile into a grin the very moment Temari turns to glare at him.

It _is_ horribly embarrassing, being the obvious focus of that proud grin. It’s even worse when, after Temari demands to know what Itachi is smiling at, Itachi says “the skill of a Suna nin,” as if he’s simply saying the truth, rather than very obviously trying to flatter both Gaara and the rest of the party.

Aniue would never say anything like that; Aniue has never lied, or over-exaggerated, without Gaara being made very deliberately aware of it. Uchiha Itachi, on the other hand, smiles and lies as easily as breathing.

Gaara is increasingly sure Aniue will not stay like he promised. Or, worse, that if he does stay, it’ll be as this smiling, too-happy liar of a man, a man that Gaara is suddenly all too aware that he does not really know.

* * *

The battle with the bandits is not something Gaara’s looking forward to, considering the strained atmosphere that’s had a tight hold on all of them since Aniue mended his sleeve. He’s annoyed, but not entirely surprised, when the twenty-something well-armed bandits decide to extend his team’s misery by doing the smart thing, and immediately scattering to the four winds once his team dashes in from the shadows.

Running doesn’t change anything for the bandits. Still, they run, and perhaps one or two might have made it away, if it weren’t for the unlucky composition of the party after them. Temari and Kankuro fall into their usual habit of being the flashy threat, flooding the rapidly emptying bandit camp with spinning winds and poison clouds and loud, mocking laughter. Uncle Yashamaru supports them with the occasional glittering dart and a knack for flushing bandits out of their hastily-chosen hiding places; the ANBU trio mostly just stick close to Itachi, watching for a single false move.

There isn’t one. In fact, as Gaara settles into his usual role, taking control of every bit of sand in the vicinity and using it as a silent, unseen weapon, he can’t help but be a little slow each time he hamstrings a bandit. Itachi is… mesmerizing.

Gaara didn’t know his aniue ever carried a sword; he’s never struck Gaara as the sort to want to use one. But the moment Aniue ducks into the path of a bandit, a sword exists, and a sword whistles through the air as it moves, finding its mark.

It takes Gaara witnessing two deaths– no, three– to realize what is bothering him.

It’s not entirely Itachi over there, but it’s not entirely Aniue, either. It’s Aniue’s sad, sweet smile, and Itachi’s merciless swings. Each cut is placed to kill quickly. It’s overkill for these bandits, who might have swarmed a genin team and given them at least a few moments of panicky trouble, but clearly cannot last a moment against a nuke-nin that moves like he’s been filling graves very nearly since the moment he was born.

All of Aniue’s bandits die silently. He ends up with a spot or two of blood on his face, and Gaara feels the sudden and ridiculous urge to go over to him and wipe them off. “Ah?” Aniue says, when he looks around, and sees the bandits have all been dealt with. “Already?” He doesn’t _sound_ surprised, just wistful, and somehow that is the most terrifying moment in the day.

The others don’t seem to take it the way Gaara does. Temari snorts, Kankuro just rolls his eyes and starts fussing over one of Karasu the First’s weapons, and none of the older ninja react at all. But Gaara, who has been fending off assassins and filling graves since he too was born, cannot bring himself to move for a long, tortuous moment.

It is not that Gaara is surprised that Aniue can kill like that, with a polite, forward step into someone else’s path. The smell of his aftershave has always carried a hint of blood, like a particularly well-washed ninja, but a ninja all the same. But this? That smile, that enjoyment that was Aniue’s and Itachi’s both?

Gaara always imagined Aniue as a clean, but remorseful killer. Not like this, not like Gaara, who still occasionally smiles as he dreams of what it feels like to close his sand around someone and crush them until they’re nothing but bloody mush.

“The town, then?” Ani– Itachi says, brightly, and so Gaara has to fall into step with him as if nothing has changed. “I pray they have at least one decent public bath. I’ve gotten _so_ sweaty.”


	9. Chapter 9

The baths are another unpleasant revelation. Gaara doesn’t stop to think of the implications as Uncle Yashamaru pays for all of them, or as Temari splits off to the women’s side, silently followed by one of the ANBU. He just shuffles along in Kankuro and Yashamaru’s wake, and starts shedding his hood and turban and removing his sweaty tunic once they’re in the changing room.

It isn’t until he realizes that everyone in the room is silent that Gaara makes the most obvious connection between where most of the party is and what they’re all planning on doing. When he does, he’s hard pressed not to spin around and look frantically about the room for Aniue, who he’s positive will not– would _never_ expose himself to strangers.

Instead, by the time Gaara can screw up enough courage and poise to very placidly look behind him, Uchiha Itachi is folding his kimono as neatly as a washerwoman would.

He’s a lot more muscled than Gaara expected him to be, somehow. He unwinds sweaty bandages from around his chest and stomach, unbuckles an inner mesh belt and coils it into place atop his kimono, and then proceeds to strip out of his standard ninja pants with the economy of motion of someone used to getting undressed in a hurry.

_Doesn’t he feel even the least bit nervous?_ Gaara, even as he thinks that, knows the answer, because it’s in the smooth, relaxed lines of Itachi’s bare arms, in the way he sheds his dark-coloured boxers and then straightens, scratching at a small seal inked on his hip. He’s got a lot less hair down there than even Gaara does, which is odd enough that it stands out, but he doesn’t seem nervous at all.

Gaara, who still forgets himself and wears sand armour into the baths, and then sits there squirming and wondering if anyone will notice the damp, compacted lump of sand squished behind his back, cannot help but feel envious. He doesn’t realize he’s showing it until Itachi sits on one of the benches near the exit to the baths proper, and Yashamaru, still clothed, comes over to give Gaara’s shoulder a hesitant squeeze.

“You’re young, Gaara-kun,” he murmurs. “You’re still growing, you know.”

And then of course Gaara feels himself go pink, not because of the pointless, unneeded reassurance, but because he just realized how obvious it must have been that he was staring at Aniue.

It’s not till they’re all in the baths– all but one ANBU, who is lurking in the shadows in the far corner– that Gaara has a separate, and even more embarrassing realization.

He saw– he _looked_ at Aniue’s penis! And there’s nothing he can think of that could possibly have prevented Aniue from noticing him at it.

Defeated, Gaara cannot quite manage to enjoy the pleasantly heated bath.

* * *

Getting out of the bath just makes everything worse, because now Gaara’s deliberately trying not to look, and he thinks Aniue might have noticed that too, and it’s _horrible_. Yashamaru, when he’s not watching Aniue like a hawk, is giving Gaara sympathetic looks, and the embarrassment of knowing the ANBU are witnessing this is only making Gaara even more red in the face.

Water beads on Aniue’s bare back, and gently steams out of existence. Then Aniue turns around to face the rest of them, and the sheer wickedness in his expression is the only thing that gives Gaara the strength to frown a little and say, in his calmest, coldest tone: “Is that effect caused by a seal, Uchiha-san?”

Kankuro, who has been smirking in Gaara’s direction since the unwanted shoulder-squeeze from their uncle, turns away to better disguise a strangled laugh as a coughing fit. Yashamaru’s mouth compresses, and he won’t meet Gaara’s eye, and the nondescript brown-haired man that was the only ANBU obviously in the baths with them has entirely disappeared.

Aniue looks… startled? Gaara’s not quite sure that’s the word for it, but when Aniue blinks, and very obviously looks down his own front, Gaara can’t help looking as well, only to end up frowning even more, because now he thinks he understands what Kankuro is still shaking with laughter over, or he _would_ understand, if Aniue was even a little bit hard.

“I meant the evaporation effect,” Gaara has to force himself to say, because he knows, just _knows_ it’ll keep Kankuro continuing to pretend to cough his lungs out. And then adds: “I was just– you don’t have to say, Uchiha-san.”

“Oh, I don’t mind saying,” Aniue says, combing lax fingers through his long, hatefully dry hair. “If you like, you can come over here, and I can show you precisely which seal it is.”

It’s all Gaara can do not to scowl; he knows what it’s supposed to mean, when someone lowers their voice like that while smiling widely at you. In all of the boredom and tension and exasperation of these last few days, he almost forgot the most likely way Aniue was going to play his eventual defection to Suna. The very worst thing is, Gaara has been warned repeatedly over how to handle this sort of approach, and he’s always done it the way he was taught to, so he doesn’t have an excuse not to react to this with anything but a polite, but firm refusal.

“Gaara-sama,” Yashamaru begins to say, clearly not having noticed that Gaara isn’t panicking or blushing, “perhaps–”

“I can see very well from where I am now, Uchiha-san,” Gaara says, pointedly. “Which seal is it?” Technically, he should let the topic drop, but he is also tired from the stupid tension of the walk out here, and annoyed at the way he’s starting to see Aniue in Uchiha Itachi, so he decides it’s all right to be demanding, and perhaps a little rude. “Well?”

Itachi’s sly smile grates at Gaara, because that _is_ Aniue’s smile when he’s far away, but still about to pounce and catch up to Gaara and ruin their race. “Here,” he says, tilting his head a little to one side, his fingers tracing over a small, recurved spiral inked just under the left side of his jawline. “This is the one.”

The way he’s touching his own neck makes Gaara think of how soft his skin must be at such a vulnerable point. Then, as he pretends to be frowning at the seal rather than just staring at the smooth column of Aniue’s sparsely tattooed neck, Gaara has a sudden unwelcome thought, one about the kind of training and lessons _Itachi_ must have received about doing this sort of thing. About– about expressing, and accepting interest from other people.

Gaara looks away, pretending in earnest now, first to focus on putting on a slightly less sweaty set of clothes. Then he calmly argues with Yashamaru about whether they should all remain in town for a couple more days, just in case some of the bandits have gone to ground here.

Gaara hardly knows whether he even wants to stay, the way he is arguing that they should. If they stay, there might just be another humiliating bath, and more stark reminders of the gap of experience between him and Aniue. However, if they go, leaving tomorrow morning as was planned, that just means that Aniue will evaporate well before they get anywhere near Suna.

Frustrating as it is, feeling all too aware of Aniue’s presence and yet unable to really talk to him, or even look at him without everyone getting either tense or worried or (stupidly) sympathetic, it’s all at least able to be weighed against the fact that Aniue is still right where Gaara wants him to be.

When Gaara loses the argument about whether or not to stay, he is very careful to nod, and keep his sand– and his expression– under strict control. It burns.


	10. Chapter 10

After they leave the baths, they make their way outside the town. Uncle Yashamaru didn’t say it out loud, but Gaara’s fairly sure that half the reason they aren’t staying is that nobody wants Uchiha Itachi spending any more time in any town in Wind than is absolutely necessary.

Kankuro complains in a long, bitter monotone, but doesn’t have to be told to keep up as they search out an appropriate campsite. When he lies down, he very obviously lays his puppet well within reach. Temari always sleeps with at least one fan; tonight, it is the third largest one, one Gaara knows she can draw and fight with even while half-asleep.

Yashamaru seems to make no extra preparations, but Gaara can see the tension in his precise, economical movements. The ANBU stay unseen, winding down their chakra signatures until all Gaara can feel of them is the space their bodies outline beneath his carefully placed grains of sand.

Itachi _yawns_. It’s a small, polite, well-shielded yawn, but from the way he rolls his neck and shoulders afterwards, you can’t help but gain the impression that he’s already half asleep.

Gaara, secure in the fact that he is definitely not the only one watching, does not miss a moment of Aniue’s preparations for bed. It’s strange, how smoothly he unwinds and re-wraps the scarf he’s been using throughout the trip; Gaara distinctly remembers having to show him, once, very early on, when there was a sandstorm brewing, and Gaara was still afraid it would be able to scour through Suna and take his aniue away.

Tonight, Aniue wears no goggles, and instead of coming over to take Gaara’s hand, he lowers himself onto the pallet he pulled out of one of his seals. He doesn’t make a sound, but he looks very comfortable.

It takes a long time for Gaara to fall asleep. For the first time in a long, long time, he is afraid to close his eyes. Aniue is there, right there, two or three steps away, and he and his pallet are a solid, familiar shape beneath a light coating of sand, and yet, Gaara cannot bring himself to give into his growing tiredness.

_He’ll still be here tomorrow,_ Gaara tells himself, over and over. _And if he isn’t, he’ll come back eventually._ But he doesn’t manage to fall asleep until it’s been Temari’s watch for an hour. After the fifth brief, pointed glance from her, he forces himself to close his eyes, and soon forgets he was planning to open them again.

* * *

“Good morning,” someone whispers in Gaara’s ear, and the only reason that someone doesn’t immediately get a mouthful of sand is because Gaara knows who it is, and feels a wild surge of joy at that knowledge.

Aniue used to wake him like this, in the early days, when sleep was a thing Gaara was still struggling with. That he’s doing it now, in front of the whole party…

The whole party that is, as far as Gaara can tell, soundly asleep?

“They won’t remember,” Aniue says, pulling a little way back, and all of a sudden, Gaara is furious, furious enough that he’s got Aniue pinned down, his back against the shifting mound that usually serves as Gaara’s bed. “Gaara–”

“You can’t leave me here,” isn’t what Gaara means to say. It’s what he feels most strongly, but he’s usually not so stupid as to _say it_ , especially when he knows that nothing will keep Aniue in a place he doesn’t wish to be. Whether he’s planning to leave permanently, or simply planning to erase all trace of his presence as always, there is nothing Gaara can do to stop him.

“Don’t cry,” Aniue says, his voice strange. Strangled. “Gaara, please don’t–”

“I’m not.” It’s a useless lie. Even if Gaara can ignore the hated feeling of wetness leaking from his eyes, there is no way to possibly miss the way his tears are spattering down on Aniue’s frowning face. “Why did you even bother to–” _Why can’t I say anything right?_ “–Aniue. You can’t…” _He_ can _leave. Be more logical._ But no logical arguments come to Gaara, and so he ends up saying, again: “Don’t leave me.”

“I’m not planning to,” Aniue says, his tone gentle, but firm. “Gaara, look at me. I _won’t_. Okay?”

Gaara blinks hard, and tries not to think about the fact that Aniue’s word is all that backs that promise. It used to be enough, before, even when it meant his missing the occasional visit deadline by a few days, but now…

“Gaara?”

That Aniue is frowning up at him only makes things worse; in the weak half-darkness of the coming dawn, even when Aniue isn’t smiling too widely, he looks too much like Uchiha Itachi. Uchiha-san, who lies well enough to fool civilians and ninja both, and who was in the village far more often than Gaara was ever aware of.

“Gaa–”

“I’m fine,” Gaara snaps, hastily scrubbing his face. “I just– I thought–”

“If I was leaving for a long time, I would have told you,” Aniue says, reaching up to squeeze his shoulder. “That hasn’t changed.”

Unsaid is the fact that other things have. Gaara’s too much of a coward to bring them up immediately, so what he does next is sit up and shift awkwardly off Aniue’s prone form. “So,” he says, after a brief silence, “they’ll all,” and he gestures sharply at the sleeping bodies around them, “just wake up, when you go?”

“Mmm,” Aniue says, still relaxed, his fingers digging idly through the sand supporting him. “When you prime the seal I’m going to give to you, yes.”

Gaara snorts, unable to help it; he can all too easily imagine the kind of reaction _that_ will bring. “Scorpion’s going to hate your guts,” he mutters. “She had the dawn watch on their side, I think.”

“Not to worry, Gaara-kun,” Aniue says, with a brief, warm grin. “I’ll tweak things so she wakes up last.”

Something about his manner– that grin, or perhaps his light, unconcerned tone– digs at Gaara, digs in so sharply and so strongly that he finds himself leaning in over Aniue and pressing him down against the sand again. Gaara just wants to shut him up, that’s all, and this– sealing Aniue’s mouth with his feels like the only way to go about it.

Aniue’s lips are soft and a little dry, and then he parts them, and Gaara can’t hold back a moan. It’s warm and wet, Aniue’s tongue is stroking his, licking into his mouth in a way that makes him squirm. Panicking, Gaara freezes, because he knows he just woke up, and that his mouth has to taste funny, and he can hear Shukaku’s faint, mocking laughter in the back of his mind. But then Aniue sucks on his bottom lip, and he doesn’t feel frozen anymore, just too dazed and strange to do anything but moan out loud like an idiot.

A hard, lean arm tightens around Gaara’s waist, drawing him in even closer. He can’t help but shiver, his face and neck feeling hot, because he’s already getting hard, and now Aniue _knows_ , because they’re close enough that he can _feel it_.

Gaara makes a shaky attempt to pull away, only to end up rubbing– shifting– and then feeling, with a choked gasp, the sudden pressure of Aniue’s erection against his own.

Moving away suddenly seems very stupid. Just moving is fine, a slow, careful back-and-forth that makes Gaara feel hot all over. They’ve stopped kissing, now, but that only makes it easier for Gaara to hear Aniue’s harsh, increasingly unsteady breaths.

“Can we do more?” Gaara finally says, though his voice is hatefully shaky, because he thinks if he doesn’t, they’ll just keep doing this, and as nice as it is, it’s not enough. It makes him feel like he’ll burst out of his skin if he can’t get Aniue to touch him. “Aniue, can you–”

He stops then, because Aniue’s hand is pressed against his chest, and not in a good way. It’s a little mortifying how easily Aniue can half lift, half push his trembling body away, and the implied rejection brings stinging, stupid tears to his eyes.

“We shouldn’t,” Aniue says, in a low, unsteady tone that barely sounds like him. “ _I_ shouldn’t.”

“Why?” Somehow, Gaara manages to get that one word sounding reasonably calm, despite how hard he’s blinking, and how he can’t quite lie still beside Aniue. “Why shouldn’t you?”

“You’re fifteen,” is the low, firm answer. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

“You kissed me,” Gaara finds himself saying, though that is the opposite of what happened. Then, when Aniue looks over at him, eyes narrowed in rebuttal, he tries another tack. “You _liked_ kissing me.” He doesn’t mention the rubbing they were doing; it seems safer to leave it out. A kiss doesn’t have to– a kiss can be innocent. “Can’t we just do that?”

Somehow, when Gaara makes that plaintive offer, he can’t help but feel oddly content. He _knows_ he is being manipulative, letting his voice shake a little, letting himself sound tired and small. If Aniue refuses him like this, Gaara will be upset, but he’ll at least know he tried. “Can’t we, please?” he adds, for good measure, almost certain it won’t work. “Aniue?”

He doesn’t expect to be dragged back in and kissed so hard that he can’t breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand now I'm all caught up to what I've already posted on meme. Next chapter, it'll be Itachi's POV again, and more sweet sweet filth.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited because I somehow snuck in the wrong version /o\

“You,” Itachi finds himself saying, when he finally has to pull away, “you think kissing is enough?”

He only allows Gaara one shaky breath before going back in for another violent, unrelenting kiss. This time, Itachi bites Gaara’s lower lip and greedily swallows his pained gasp. It feels good, but not good enough, so the next thing Itachi does is slip his hand beneath the loose wrap covering Gaara’s head and neck, and curl his fingers into Gaara’s hair.

“I,” Gaara says, a breathless moment later. “Yes. Kissing’s fine.” But when Itachi forces him to come in even closer, he not only doesn’t resist, he’s the one to start rocking against Itachi, rubbing his cock right against Itachi’s like the shameless little whore he–

“Stop that,” Itachi says, tightly, hating how quickly his mind has fallen to calling Gaara filthy names. Gaara’s _young_ ; it makes sense he’d get a little carried away. He’s not– Itachi can’t think of him as if he’s– “Let’s try doing this with both of us on our sides, or we’ll just keep messing up.”

Gaara is aroused enough to agree to anything, so it is simplicity itself to urge him to edge off Itachi and onto his side, so that they are still facing each other, but can more easily keep a modest space between their hips. If Itachi was at all sensible, he’d have stopped this after the first, disastrous kiss, but since he isn’t…

“Ah!” Gaara’s shocked cry is surprisingly quiet, a soft, strangled sound that barely escapes his throat. Pulling harder at the neck of his tunic, Itachi licks just under his adam’s apple, then switches to more teasing little bites, all of it the sort of thing that can technically be said to happen as part of a kiss. He wants so much more than this, but he can’t– “Please, Aniue.”

Itachi doesn’t know when he put his hand on Gaara’s hip, but he’s suddenly all too aware of it. The only safe direction is a straight path up Gaara’s side, and even that isn’t really safe, not with the way Gaara’s tunic is slit. Touching his skin there is a terrible idea; it’ll only make Itachi want to kiss him there too, and if he lets himself do _that_ …

“Touch me,” Gaara begs, and so Itachi slides a hand right under his tunic, shivering with guilt, knowing he deliberately bypassed the safer option. “Can you… can you also touch my…?”

“Not if you can’t even say the word to me,” Itachi mutters, but he has already made himself a liar, his hand moving automatically downwards between them, to grip Gaara’s cock and stroke and tease. He massages Gaara’s stiff length through the cloth of his pants, mapping out the slight curve, the weight of it, the damp cloth sticking to the tip. He wants nothing more than to unbutton Gaara and lick him. “I know what you’re doing, you know.”

The only sound Gaara makes in response is a low, strangled moan.

“You never really beg me for anything like this,” Itachi continues, hating the way his voice is starting to be unsteady. “When you beg, you never sound like you think I can say no.”

“Nnh– sorry.” Naturally, Gaara doesn’t _sound_ sorry. “I– can you– directly– ah!” Itachi doesn’t know how he managed it, how he could sound so needy and desperate right up until the moment Itachi gave in, when now… “ _Please._ ” Now, all he has are commands, as if Itachi needs to be forced to keep stroking him. “Kiss me.”

There are tears in his eyes as Itachi moves in to obey his order, and he groans again into Itachi’s mouth, and he’s leaking enough that he slides in and out of Itachi’s tight grip with sinful ease. It’s perfect. “You,” Itachi hears himself saying, his voice low and choked, “you’re so sneaky. Are you going to come?”

“Nnh…” Gaara sounds choked, almost miserable, but he’s jerking his hips hard and fast, desperate for release. “Aniue…”

Itachi shudders when he feels the first hot splash against the inside of his palm. Gaara whimpers, and his thrusts lose their previous rough rhythm. Itachi licks his lips, and tightens his grip, careful to avoid the now probably oversensitive head. When Gaara sags a little against him, he doesn’t even think twice about bringing his sticky hand up to his mouth to lick it clean.

It feels entirely strange to look away from Gaara’s shadowed, soft expression, and see that the sky hasn’t really got very much lighter. What they’ve done (what Itachi _wanted_ ) hasn’t taken all that long.

“Are you…?” Gaara asks, his hand shifting to lie between them, the tips of his fingers barely brushing Itachi’s chest. “Should I do you, too?”

“No,” Itachi hears himself say, but it’s low and weak, and so it’s not surprising that Gaara ignores it. He feels like some kind of strange, perverted statue, his breaths coming out in harsh, too-loud rattles whenever he feels Gaara’s hands on him. “Please.”

“If I do,” Gaara says, his tone low and cruel, his hand just barely giving enough pressure to be felt, “you have to stay.”

_I was always going to stay,_ Itachi should say. _You don’t have to do this._ But if Gaara’s playing this game, if he thinks he can get away with these dirty tactics, Itachi’s going to take advantage too.

“I’ll stay,” he moans, over and over again, wishing he could get enough purchase against Gaara’s weight and Gaara’s constricting sand, wishing he wasn’t just thrusting into Gaara’s small, calloused hand, but also his mouth, or his tight little ass. “Ah, _gods_.” This feels even filthier than his first, exquisitely guilty time in a whorehouse, because when Gaara’s hand tightens around him and twists just right, for just that moment, he doesn’t feel guilty at all. “ _Ugh_!”

Gaara holds Itachi down throughout that almost painful orgasm. Afterwards, he sags down on top of Itachi, his breaths unsteady and warm against Itachi’s neck, his grip still moving up and down, slowly, dragging reluctant twitches and jerks out of Itachi’s faithless cock. When Gaara finally pulls back, his expression is serious, and just a tiny bit anxious. “I’m not going to lick it,” he says, firmly. “I don’t like the way it tastes.”

“You don’t have to,” Itachi mutters, still too fogged and tender from the consequences of all his terrible decisions to make much sense of anything. Then, as Gaara drags himself up into a sitting position, Itachi’s brain catches on to the implication of what his– his fifteen-year-old lover just said, and all he can say is: “What?”

And then, when his mouth catches up to his brain: “What do you mean you’ve _tasted_ …?”

The look Gaara directs down at him makes him shrink back, feeling like the world’s biggest hypocrite. When Gaara finally chooses to pay attention to the hand he’s trying to wipe clean with bandages, it leaves Itachi feeling like an idiot, and what Gaara says next makes him feel even worse: “I tasted my own, once.”

And then he adds, as Itachi drags an arm over his face: “Don’t tell me _you_ never tried it.”

Itachi did try it, when he was twelve, and desperate for any kind of distraction, and he justified it to himself by thinking of the things the ANBU’s seduction corps were already very gently trying to pass on: that knowing what could happen in a concrete way was the best way to deal with things that made you uneasy. He’d ended up enjoying the sheer filthiness of what he was doing to himself so much that he’d panicked, and never tried it more than that handful of times.

(When Kisame had asked why he was so offhand about swallowing, he’d passed it off as being practical, and not wanting to have anything to clean up. He’d rather have disembowelled himself than admitted doing it for someone else felt less twisted and dirty than doing it for himself.)

“Aniue?” It really isn’t fair that Gaara can still sound like that, uncertain and defiant and hopeful all at once. “You said you were going to give me a seal?”

“Oh, that,” Itachi says, wishing he wasn’t so easily distracted by everything and anything pertaining to the young, slightly frowning boy beside him. “Give me your left hand, please. Palm up.” This is risky, this is probably pushing the envelope just a little too much, but he’s already done so much that he regrets. Why not just one more thing? “It’ll fade within a day,” he murmurs, as he rubs a thumb over the small black triangle he just imprinted on Gaara’s skin. “Channel chakra into it, and everyone will wake.”

“Hm,” Gaara says, his eyes narrowing a little as he studies the seal. “Disruption?”

“Unravelling,” Itachi says, poking a fingernail at the tiny rune signifier. “Close enough, though.” Teaching Gaara how to recognize dangerous seal elements at a glance was surprisingly easy; getting him to draw them properly was another story. Gaara just likes doing things very directly, and a seal isn’t usually that. “Now, if you can just give me about twenty minutes as a head start–”

“Ten.”

“Gaara–”

“ _Ten_.” When Itachi frowns at him, he scowls back. “You’ve made me wait a lot this year,” he says, coldly. “You didn’t even leave me any spare daifuku.”

“Ah. Gaara-kun, that–”

“Ten. Minutes.”

Itachi knows _that_ mulish expression, so he simply smiles, and hurries the preparations for his departure. He’s not sure Gaara is ready to forgive him for staying away even after hearing his reasons for doing so, especially since the true reason he stayed away has just been made very thoroughly moot.

Just now, Itachi’s not at all sure why he decided to slant the start of their public interactions the way he did. Or rather, he knows why, he just doesn’t know how on earth he came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea. Gauging Gaara’s receptiveness to advances Itachi felt too guilty to make in a straightforward manner was a strategy doomed to fail, or at least doomed to end up exposing his utter lack of self-control.

It’s shameful to feel even a little glad that Gaara’s acceptance of his advances has taken such a greedy, demanding shape.

“Next time,” Itachi murmurs, as he reduces the stained bandaging he took from Gaara to ash, “there won’t be a need to do this. I’ll lick it all up for you.”

The shocked, wide-eyed look that puts on Gaara’s face makes it all worth the burn of shame Itachi feels at being so crude. “Next time?” Gaara says. “When?”

“Tonight,” Itachi says, and doesn’t feel even a bit guilty at how that makes Gaara shiver. “I’ll explain some of the plan, then.”

“Okay,” Gaara says, his tone low and reluctant and just a little annoyed, and then has the audacity to look surprised when Itachi pulls him close and kisses him. Itachi savors the feel of Gaara’s mouth beneath his, and he doesn’t give into Gaara’s weak struggle to pull back until they are both panting again. “Don’t tease, Aniue. Go if you’re going.”

“You don’t like being teased?” Itachi says, pulling him close again, feeling a hot rush of satisfaction when Gaara frowns up at him, but makes no move to escape his embrace. “I’ll make up for it, I promise.”

Gaara’s response is a disbelieving snort. He still allows Itachi to press one more kiss to his lips before wriggling out of his grip. “Ten minutes,” he says, pressing two fingers to the seal on his palm. “You’d better not be late.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiatus over~!

The last thing Gaara expects is that, not only does Aniue keep his half-smiling, half solemn promise not to be late, he keeps it so well that when Gaara trudges into his room late that night, Aniue is already _there_.

Worse, he’s _already undressed_. Then, when Gaara flushes, and averts his gaze, and looks back again, unable to help himself, he realizes Aniue isn’t completely naked, just stripped down to his ninja pants, and barefoot. Which probably has something to do with the large, intricate seal beneath the largest window, a seal he is making small, careful adjustments to with his black hand.

“You’re here,” Gaara finds himself saying, though it is the most stupid and obvious thing to say. “You’re– Aniue, is something wrong?”

“No,” is the calm, unhurried answer. “Just thought it a good idea to work on this, while I waited.”

Someone else would probably have sounded a little injured or annoyed, saying that. It’s been dark outside for quite some time now; Gaara escaped the clutches of the overzealous Sealing Corps a few hours ago, only to be swept into an emergency meeting with Father, Uncle Yashamaru and an older woman he vaguely recognized as one of the retired Elders. _That_ meeting didn’t let him go until just half an hour ago, and he only got away because Father and Yashamaru had given up on their usual clipped, seemingly polite mutual sniping and simply started shouting at each other loud enough to be heard all throughout the tower.

“I haven’t waited all that long,” Aniue says, in a low, soothing tone that makes Gaara bristle a bit despite himself. “Sit, you look tired.”

If Gaara were in a better mood, the first thing out of his mouth at _that_ statement would be a snide comment about how bold Aniue is being, treating the comforts of the bedroom of the Kazekage’s son and heir as his own to offer. As it is, all Gaara can bring himself to do is approach the bed and sit down heavily.

Aniue’s concerned gaze feels like a wave of warmth, like walking in from the bitter cold and being faced with a fire already burning in the hearth before you. Gaara, feeling that gaze directed at him, wants both to hide and to get up and go closer to the source so he can bask in it, but he can’t bring himself to move an inch.

“Was it very bad?” Aniue’s voice is low and coaxing, and he’s starting to move toward Gaara, even though he can surely feel the thickening haze of sand starting to fill the room. “Gaara?”

_I didn’t kill anyone,_ Gaara wants to say, but he knows the mood that’s digging into him right now, and he knows the way the words would come out. Flat. Flatly saying such a thing never works out well; much as Kankuro has gotten good at hiding his minute moment of hesitation just so he can look cool for rolling his eyes at Suna’s Sand Demon, Gaara knows that sort of thing still gets to him.

Gaara doesn’t mind occasionally scaring Kankuro; it’s almost gotten to be a strange sort of inside joke between all three siblings, that Temari can weather Gaara’s flat gaze better than Kankuro can. But Aniue…

He knows he can’t scare Aniue, but even so, he doesn’t want to say anything that could possibly have even the slightest chance of doing so. Aniue was the first person to pat him on the head, other than Yashamaru. Aniue thinks he’s _cute_. Much as Gaara knows that he doesn’t fit the definition of that word, he still wants to do what he can to stay within its boundaries, so he keeps his mouth shut, and only answers Aniue’s question with a brief shrug. And then adds, when he senses Aniue taking a step closer to him: “I’m just tired, like you said.”

It’s a stupid lie. Gaara feels like he can count every grain of sand within touching distance of Aniue’s tall, lean body. He feels Shukaku pressing on the inside of the seal within him. It doesn’t hurt– it never will hurt, after what Aniue did to him on the first night they met– but it is annoying. A reminder that Shukaku is there, and would love very much to _help_.

Downstairs, in the side room attached to Father’s old study, behind a dizzying amount of privacy seals, Father kept countering Yashamaru’s loud demands for Uchiha Itachi’s poisoning with the fact that they still weren’t sure if he was in deep cover for Konoha. Even though Elder Chie– no, Chiyo, that was it– had tried her best to rein in both older men, they had gone on screaming classified information at each other, paying no attention to Gaara’s presence there.

So Gaara now knows, in more detail than he could ever have wanted, the way Suna operatives in Konoha source their rumours and filter them for actual facts. He also now knows that the Uchiha haven’t yet formally cast Itachi out, and that they probably never will, if only so they can claim bloodline theft if anyone tries to withhold Itachi’s untouched corpse from them.

Gaara isn’t sure what it says about him that, when Father revealed that fact, the first thing Gaara thought of was the neat, practised way Aniue disposed of his seed, after their sordid morning tryst.

“Gaara?”

He _does_ know what it says about him that the thought of Aniue being in deep cover for Konoha’s sake only irritates him because it would mean Aniue couldn’t truly belong to him. He knows he’s supposed to care very much about how Uchiha Itachi’s divided loyalties could harm Suna, and yet…

“Gaara.” Aniue is in front of him, now, looking blank in that particular, deadened way that means he’s really worried. “Tell me what happened.”

“And if I don’t?” Gaara doesn’t mean to sound so angry and petty and _small_. Somehow, he’s not surprised by the way Aniue closes that last little bit of distance between them, kneeling in front of Gaara’s stiffly sitting form, one hand coming up to touch Gaara’s face.

He’s surprised by the next place Aniue’s hand goes. One minute, Aniue’s large, calloused hand is stroking his cheek, and in the next, it’s _right between Gaara’s thighs_ , stroking…

“What…” he hears himself saying, faintly.

“I can make you tell me.” Aniue isn’t smiling, but there’s a strange sort of self-satisfaction in his tone that makes Gaara think of the way he grins when he’s Itachi. “Is that what you want?”

_Yes,_ Gaara doesn’t say, because he’s already struggling, testing the strength of the sudden grip Aniue now has on his shoulders. The hand between his thighs doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything but apply a teasing, almost insubstantial amount of pressure, and before Gaara quite knows what’s happening, he’s gone from trying to wriggle away out of sheer spite to thrusting against that hard, warm hand, desperately seeking more.

“Tell me, Gaara,” Aniue says, his voice hot and low against Gaara’s ear, so Gaara very naturally turns his head away. “You–”

“You have to do me first,” Gaara finds himself saying, in an unsteady rush. “I’ll… maybe I’ll tell you, after, if– hngh!”

He was going to say, ‘if it’s good’, but Aniue chose that moment to sneak his hand down the front of Gaara’s halfway unbuttoned pants, and so Gaara doesn’t say much else.

It’s worse than what happened this morning. Back then, there was at least a sense of mutual restraint, a sense of needing to be quiet, even if the sleepers around them were sealed not to wake. Somehow, even as Gaara had begged and teased Aniue into taking him then, he hadn’t understood just how much Aniue was holding back.

Now that they’re alone, safely shut away in Gaara’s room, Aniue is much bolder. He peels off every last article of clothing Gaara is wearing, pinching and squeezing and stroking every last inch of Gaara’s increasingly sensitive skin. His hand keeps coming back to Gaara’s cock to squeeze, to rub, to run his calloused fingers up and down the whole length nearly too lightly to be felt.

“You really should just tell me,” Aniue says, as he ruthlessly pinches the head of Gaara’s cock, only to let go in the next instant, his hand moving to gently cup Gaara’s aching balls, leaving him thrusting into nothing. “I can do a lot worse than this.”

“Do it,” Gaara hears himself snarl, but he’s not quite sure what he’s asking for. He only knows that he’s hard enough that it hurts, but Aniue has him pinned solidly against the bed, and won’t so much as give him a thigh to rub against. All he seems inclined to do right now is pinch Gaara’s nipples and press sloppy kisses all over his chest. “Aniue, _please_.”

“Then tell me,” Aniue says, as if he isn’t deliberately making it difficult to think by shifting lower and lower, bringing his hot breaths ever nearer to Gaara’s aching cock. “Well?”

“I– I need–”

“This?” The first lick is small. Tortuous. “Hmm?”

“Put it in your mouth,” Gaara says, because now that both Aniue’s hands are holding down his hips, he can’t even thrust up and feel a little more of Aniue’s hot, wet tongue even by accident. “Please.”

Aniue just looks at him, entirely unmoved. When Gaara scowls, the only response it gets is a small, mean smile, followed by another tortuous lick.

That time, Aniue’s deliberately swipes his tongue over the very tip, lapping up some of Gaara’s pre-come. Just the sight of it is nearly enough to make Gaara spill all over his face, and then he can’t help but close his eyes and imagine, guiltily, how it would look. How it would feel. The obscene thought of seeing his own come splashing against Aniue’s smooth, tanned skin makes Gaara’s balls tighten and ache, but without extra stimulation, without Aniue’s hand around his cock, it’s not enough to set him off.

“Please,” Gaara whimpers, but all that does is get Aniue lick him– once– and rub his thumb against the damp trail left behind. “I– I heard…”

“Hmm?” He feels the rumble of Aniue’s response before he hears it, if only because his thighs are pinned in place by the weight of Aniue’s chest. “Tell me.”

“You… the Sannin you killed…”

“Ah,” Aniue says, his warm breath horribly tantalizing against the side of Gaara’s cock. “So that’s finally made it all the way out here.”

Then, just as Gaara is about to open his eyes and glare at Aniue for that rather insulting statement, Aniue shifts his weight again, and suddenly his mouth is on Gaara’s cock, sucking in the tip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more chapter left to go...


	13. Chapter 13

Gaara expects to come then and there, but it doesn’t happen. The wet slide of Aniue’s mouth, up and then very slowly down, really should be too much to bear. But perhaps the slowness of the stroke weighs more than the warm, wet feel of it, and the equally wet sounds that slow, torturous motion produces.

“Hh, I’m– Aniue, I’m almost–”

But Aniue ignores Gaara’s weak attempt at trying to push his head away, and just keeps sucking him, slurping his way up and down, taking more and more into his mouth until he’s sucked Gaara all the way to the root. He lingers there, his tongue rubbing the underside of Gaara’s aching cock, and then his hands squeeze around Gaara’s balls.

On the second squeeze, Gaara thrusts up into Aniue’s mouth, helpless. He comes right as Aniue is starting to slurp all the way back up; he just can’t help it.

Feeling Aniue swallow around his twitching, spurting cock is too good for words. Feeling Aniue’s warm, wet mouth continue moving on him, even after he’s wrung out every last drop of Gaara’s come is…

“Aniue, that’s– hngh– I, I already–”

It’s not a surprise to Gaara that his aniue doesn’t stop. What _does_ surprise Gaara is the way one of Aniue’s hands drifts from its tight hold on his hips, curving around to squeeze Gaara’s ass. Gaara, despite the wicked pleasure of having Aniue suckle his now oversensitive cock, can’t help but feel a little panicked.

“I don’t want that,” Gaara rushes to say, hating how breathless he sounds. “I… I don’t want to be fucked.”

Somehow, even though Gaara knows very well how indecisive that must sound, Aniue murmurs around him, and his hand shifts higher, moving to stroke Gaara’s lower back instead. “Better?”

“Nnh!” It’s not a yes, because despite Gaara being more than a little wary of how it would feel to let Aniue use his ass, he was enjoying how dirty it felt to have Aniue touching and squeezing him there anyway. It’s not a no, though, because Gaara’s starting to get hard again, and even though Aniue pulled his mouth off to speak, he replaced it with a hand, and he’s stroking so roughly that it hurts a little, and Gaara can’t imagine it getting better than this.

Then Aniue shifts again, and again, until he’s half on top of Gaara, his body completely bare, his cock hard and hot and _huge_ against Gaara’s thigh, and Gaara has to admit he was wrong. This– this breathless, wordless movement, the press of Aniue’s hand, the shock Gaara feels when their cocks finally touch– this is definitely better.

“I’m going to come all over you,” Aniue says, his voice low and tight. “I’m going to let it out all over your hand again.” When Gaara eagerly reaches down to help make that filthy wish a reality, he’s happy to find that his hand will circle both their cocks, and even happier when doing that makes Aniue thrust even harder. “That– Gaara–”

Gaara doesn’t need any sand to hold Aniue in place this time. But he noticed, last time, the way Aniue’s cock throbbed when Gaara held him down, so he can’t help but curl his sand around Aniue’s ankles, just hard enough to be felt.

Sure enough, Aniue makes a low, urgent sound, and Gaara speeds up his shaky strokes. Aniue groans again, his body going boneless and heavy on top of Gaara, and a moment later, he’s spilling all over the both of them, his hot seed spattering against the sweaty skin of Gaara’s belly.

Gaara, still achingly hard, can’t help but think of the things he’s read about how it’s supposed to go between men. About how one needs to have one’s partner completely relaxed for the ideal result.

“Hey,” Aniue says, his words muffled from the way his head is lying against the bed, “you didn’t come again, right?”

Gaara, thinking guiltily of how he never can quite manage to relax, and how relaxed _Aniue_ currently is, can only shake his head. “I… can I…”

“Hmm?” Aniue rolls a little way off of him. “You want my hand, or my mouth?”

There’s something really dirty about how matter-of-factly he asks that. Gaara can’t help but flush, and then flush again, when he sees the way Aniue’s gaze is lingering on his sticky upper body.

“Let me clean you up, first,” Aniue says, already moving back in. “Think about what you want while I do it.”

Naturally, doing as Aniue suggested just ends up with Gaara thrusting wildly into his mouth again, too tantalized by the sensation of being licked clean to think of anything else. Or, well, to think of anything he can bear to say out loud.

It’s hard to imagine Aniue even wanting to think about letting Gaara use his ass, if only on account of how unpractised they both know that Gaara is at that sort of thing. It’s much easier to visualize Aniue getting on top again, and reaching down to adjust Gaara’s aching cock so it is trapped between his taut thighs, and that thought is quite enough to force Gaara over the edge again, spilling into Aniue’s warm, demanding mouth.

* * *

There’s something very strange about discussing things with Aniue while they’re both in bed together. It’s embarrassingly distracting even though they just did it, and did it energetically enough that Gaara has to struggle not to fall asleep while Aniue talks about the cat-and-mouse game he’s been playing with Elder Chiyo.

Apparently, the supposed breakthrough that let the Sealing Corps start turning up more evidence of Uchiha Itachi’s affairs in Suna was entirely engineered by Aniue, the key seal behind it offered to Elder Chiyo as some sort of bizarre attempt at a goodwill gift.

“You do know they haven’t taken it that way, right?” Gaara can’t help but say, at that point. “The meeting that kept me tonight, half of it was my father and Yashamaru and that elder arguing over precisely what it is that you’re here to spy on for Konoha.”

“Oh?” Aniue doesn’t sound particularly concerned. “Well, that’s not the worst thing for them to think.”

“I don’t see how it could be worse,” Gaara mutters, sullenly, though he can easily imagine how much more panicked the meeting would have been if Father and the others were convinced Itachi was in deep cover for Kumo instead of Konoha. Konoha at least tries to keep to their treaty terms; Kumo only remembers their terms when there’s a strong team present to force the issue. “What are you going to do next?”

“First,” Aniue says, his tone serious, his gaze teasing as he leans in over Gaara, “I’m going to kiss you.”

Gaara _wants_ to resist, wants to do something, anything to make it just a little more difficult for Itachi, but he can’t help himself. This is Uchiha Itachi slowly approaching him, smirking a little, his lips parting slightly as he presses a brief, hot kiss to Gaara’s cheek. Moments later, that wicked mouth is torturing Gaara again, biting and kissing and licking sensitive spots on the side of Gaara’s neck.

“Why can’t you just… mmph…!” Naturally, Aniue only bothers to give him a real kiss when he starts to complain. “I asked you a real question,” Gaara finally adds some moments later, desperately trying to keep his voice cool and calm and not at all breathless. “Answer me.”

“I’m going to go on making a nuisance of myself,” Aniue says, with a brief, sly smile. “Just like today. Just like right now.” And then he rolls the two of them until Gaara is on top, and he squeezes Gaara’s ass, putting just enough downward pressure on him there so their cocks are forced to rub against each other.

They get sweaty and breathless together. Aniue pauses once, to take a jar out of one of his seals, and Gaara soon finds himself thrusting helplessly into the newly slick grip of Aniue’s hand.

Then Aniue uses his slick hands to coat the sensitive skin of Gaara’s inner thighs, and asks in a low, careful tone if it’s all right to put his cock there, and Gaara can’t say yes fast enough. It feels more filthy than he imagined it would. The scentless oil Aniue used gets everywhere, and Aniue doesn’t stop stroking him, and though they never quite find a smooth rhythm, they both end up coming all over each other, Aniue’s seed drenching Gaara’s thighs just moments after he spills into Aniue’s hot, tight grip.

Afterwards, they don’t really speak. Aniue stirs only to pull out some clean cloths for them to wipe down with, and then settles heavily back onto the bed beside Gaara, already half asleep.

_He could still be in deep cover,_ Shukaku whispers, resentful of the fact that Gaara is watching the play of shadow across Aniue’s face rather than paying attention to the supremely annoying twists and turns the bijuu is doing within the confines of the seal. _What do you think will come of you loving a traitor?_

Gaara pointedly does not answer.

* * *

As it turns out, what comes of falling stupidly in love with Uchiha Itachi is a sore ass and a never-ending litany of cattily worded diplomatic censures from Konoha for knowingly harbouring a clan traitor. They only send one ANBU team to the border to at least make it look like they’re trying for a retrieval, only for said traitor to very visibly pop up in Konoha a day later, buying dango from his favourite stall.

On that same foolhardy trip, Aniue leaves behind a birthday gift for his brother, and his slashed but otherwise pristine Konoha hitai-ate. Something about the way Aniue relays the fact of the latter makes Gaara think there must have been a note left along with it, but he doesn’t ask, and Aniue never says anything about it.

The diplomatic letters slow after that, though. The Suna council debates at stultifying length just what kind of standing Uchiha Itachi should be given in the village, considering his now supposedly complete defection, but Father refuses to weigh in on any of the five sides of the argument, so nothing is set in stone.

That doesn’t stop Aniue from appearing for every one of Gaara’s missions with a Suna hitai-ate tied neatly around his upper left arm. No one other than Gaara seems to like that, but it’s not like they can do anything about it even if they want to.

Aniue still disappears now and then. But when he goes, instead of the usual vague estimate of when next he’ll be in the neighbourhood, Gaara gets details and specifics. They don’t always make sense (Gaara will never forget the time Aniue said he’d be going to Konoha to kidnap someone during his cousin’s wedding), but it’s still comforting to hear those explanations, to listen to Aniue’s low, pleasant tone as he explains just why he has to leave again.

* * *

It isn’t until years later, long after Father has retired and saddled Gaara with the daunting responsibility of keeping Sunagakure alive, that Gaara finally admits to himself that Aniue’s story– Aniue’s _life_ – doesn’t make sense. Gaara, though too busy to ever quite make jonin-sensei, has seen enough of Temari’s team to know that even geniuses have limits.

Aniue was eleven years old when he came to Suna that first time. He was serious, kind, and just a little frightening, and he was never ever _ever_ afraid of anything Gaara could do. Age aside, there’s also the fact that there wasn’t any kind of assassination order seeking Gaara’s head back then, and the fact that his status as jinchuuriki wasn’t yet an open secret.

For even an eleven-year-old genius, just locating Gaara would have been extremely difficult, if not entirely impossible. Tracking down Suna’s secret jinchuuriki just after escaping Konoha’s T&I division after being arrested for the unprovoked murder of a council elder? _Definitely_ impossible. But Uchiha Itachi had still done it.

Gaara asks Aniue a lot of things these days, things that he used to be too nervous or self-conscious or embarrassed to ask. He knows a lot more than he’d prefer to know about the dark side of Konoha, about longevity seals with terrifying effects and secret ANBU factions and the crazy things Uchiha have historically done to evolve their eyes.

Still, Gaara never asks Aniue why his life is so packed full of impossible achievements and events. Not because he doesn’t want to know, or because Aniue might refuse to tell him, but because he thinks it doesn’t matter.

In the end, no matter how Aniue accomplished all the crazy things he’s done, he has kept his promise to stay. No matter where he goes or what he does, he always ends his trip in Suna, on the walls, at the mission desk, or– most often– on the wide windowsill in Gaara’s bedroom.

“I’m home,” is always the first thing he says, because the first time he tried saying that, Gaara blushed and stammered an incoherent reply, and Uchiha Itachi is not the kind of man to ever let him forget it. These days, Gaara doesn’t blush so easily anymore, but he still can’t help but pause to savour that phrase whenever Aniue says it.

It’s never going to go away, that little burst of pleasure he feels at being the person Aniue comes home to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there goes my ability to predict chapter count out the window. Epilogue coming up...


	14. Twenty years later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One final chapter, because apparently I really needed y'all to know how Gaara would react to The Time Travel Thing. 
> 
> Also decided to write a completely unnecessary explanation of what happened to poor Zetsu(s) in the end, which meant me taking a closer look at the wiki entry on both Zetsus, and directly dying of WTAF. _(´ཀ`」 ∠) _ So fair warning that my explanation of Zetsu's demise is super not canon.

“Time travel?” Gaara says, a little too preoccupied with poring through the thick file of relevant intelligence for this year’s chunin exams to pay attention. “Ah. Okay.”

It takes him three dense paragraphs and a moment of shocked silence to really allow what Itachi just told him to sink in. Then another moment to finish skimming the page he is on and let it drift back down onto the small stack in the open file on his desk. Then one more moment to compose himself, so that he can shape his reaction just so.

“Time travel,” Gaara says, deepening his tone. Looking in Itachi’s direction, he deliberately narrows his eyes, holding his breath for a moment, and then adds, just as Itachi looks like he as about to speak again: “That sounds nice.”

For an instant, Itachi’s carefully blank expression turns into an incredulous one, and though he hides his reaction almost immediately, that brief crack in his mask brings Gaara a jolt of wicked pleasure. “Nice,” Itachi repeats, his tone dry as the desert. “You do like your jokes, Kazekage-sama.”

The fact that he’s annoyed enough to use the actual title makes it very difficult for Gaara keep back a mean smile. “Humour is the balm of the soul, Uchiha-san,” he says, without changing his own calm, serious expression one bit. “I see no reason not to indulge in it, in moderation.”

It’s late in the day, and Gaara’s new secretary has long since scurried off home, so there is no one around to get visibly wide-eyed at the way Itachi’s posture changes from poised to threatening. Only the ANBU remain, and they are all far too used to the liberties Uchiha Itachi is allowed to take with their Kazekage. None of them take offence at how Itachi steps closer to Gaara’s desk, his shadow growing in a way that has little to do with the light from the wide window to their left, and everything to do with the small red-black dot that has suddenly appeared on the back of Itachi’s left hand.

“What?” Gaara says, without looking away from the next page of the file. He’s not taking in any of the information on said page, but he knows he _looks_ like he is, and that is more than enough. When Itachi puts a hand in Gaara’s hair, his merciless grip forcing Gaara to turn and look up at him, Gaara retaliates by widening his eyes. “ _What_?”

Itachi glares down at him. “You’re too old to pull off that innocent nonsense,” he says, his tone even, his grip not slackening at all when Gaara instinctively tries to turn away. “Stop it.”

“Will you let go if I say I’m sorry?” Itachi can _say_ Gaara’s gotten too old to look pitiful in a way that moves him, but they both know that’s not true. “Aniue?”

“Who the hell is your aniue?” Itachi scoffs, but he’s already leaning down and in to cover Gaara’s mouth with his. Silence falls between them, a silence stirred by the soft, wet sounds of their violent kiss. “I’m going to make you unable to sit for the rest of the week.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll admit it: time travel was one of my best guesses. Happy?”

Itachi shows just how unhappy he is for another moment or two, his mouth demanding, his hot hands exploiting the open neck of Gaara’s robes. By the time they pause to catch their breath again, Gaara’s robe is half off his shoulder, his nipples are achingly hard, and he’s fairly sure the sore spot on the left side of his neck is going to bruise spectacularly. His constitution as a jinchuuriki means that it’ll fade in a couple hours, but it’s still in a prominent enough place that people will see it when Gaara finally leaves work; clearly Itachi is nursing a bit of a grudge.

“Happy?” Gaara says again, emphatically, and he’s not sure whether to be irritated or fond of the way that one word makes Itachi smile. “Anyway, like I said, I guessed.”

“You don’t mind?” Itachi and Aniue have long since melded into one figure in Gaara’s mind, and inevitably, Gaara’s habit of using his first name in public carried over to how he addresses him in private. Still, Gaara sometimes cannot help but carry on classifying the different sides of his lover in the old way, and at this moment, all he can think of is that Uchiha Itachi would never sound this worried. This vulnerable. “Gaara?”

“I don’t mind that you spent a few decades on fixing that hopeless clan of yours,” Gaara says, because it’s really quite obvious in hindsight that that is exactly what Itachi did, defection or no. “Stop worrying.”

“I didn’t do it just for them,” Itachi says, defensively. “It was mostly for Sasuke’s sake, that I went to any trouble to fix their attitudes.” Then, when he sees the mocking way Gaara is looking at him, he hastens to add: “That wasn’t the only thing I fixed.”

“Oh?”

“There was a man who would have done his best to destroy the whole world,” Itachi says, his tone low and serious. “He was working with an immortal creature; I killed him and sealed the immortal, and then I went after his organization as well. Just to be safe.”

“Oh, I see.”

“And then there was Orochimaru. Those disgusting seals of his.”

“Yes.”

“And I hope you don’t mind my including you as well. You didn’t– you weren’t a disaster on the level of scum like Orochimaru, but with the way your seal was incomplete…”

“Of course.” Shukaku, who has been paying rather more attention than usual to the conversation since the moment Itachi said the words ‘time travel’, immediately launches into a muttered, incoherent stream of complaint about how it isn’t _his_ fault that he lashed out so much when Gaara was young, and that any bijuu in the same situation would have done so too. “I’m sure Shukaku made quite the impact here.”

Something in Itachi’s expression changes when he hears Gaara’s teasing quip, and not for the better. Chagrined, Gaara reaches out, capturing Itachi’s slightly shaking hand. “I don’t mind,” Gaara says, “because, in the end, when you were done saving your clan and Konoha and the world, you came to me.”

Itachi looks away, but some of the tension goes out of the stiff line of his shoulders. “Yes.”

Slowly, Gaara lifts his lover’s hand to his mouth, his lips barely brushing the fading spot of the seal on the back. “Bed?”

“The chunin exam file…”

“I’ll bring it along,” Gaara says, without batting an eye. They both know Gaara probably won’t get around to it until the small hours of the morning, but Itachi is shaken enough that he goes along with the charade, standing back to let Gaara’s sand lift the stack and bring it with them. “The immortal, how did you seal it?”

“Oh,” Itachi says. “That.” He reaches down to take hold of Gaara’s hand, first, even though the mobile two-way privacy seal works perfectly well without touch. “I relied on the second principle of a formed, steady space…”

* * *

Unfortunately, when Itachi unseals the so-called immortal a year later, in the depths of a cave on a tiny island far off shore from Suna, all that materializes is a dessicated black and white clump of cells. None of the command seals or chakra feeds provoke even the slightest response from said clump.

Then, as Itachi argues furiously with the supercilious Jiraiya-sama and the loud, pink-haired Hokage and her equally loud, blond Sealing Corps attaché over just what went wrong, Gaara gives into Shukaku’s endless pleas and lets him go over to sniff at the clump from a distance. Which naturally means Kurama shouldering his way over to the side of the massive containment seal array as well, followed by the rest of the bijuu, all of them bickering and sniping at each other as they go.

Gaara, too used to this sort of behaviour when the bijuu collectively deign to stuff themselves into small facsimiles of their animal forms, returns his attention to the spirited argument between Itachi and his fellow sealing masters. “That may be how it works for _you_ ,” Itachi is saying, the snide light in his eyes at odds with his scrupulously polite smile, “but with the way _I_ measure spatial correspondence–”

An ominous hum stops him mid-word. Gaara, tensing, immediately spins up a sand wall between all of them and the edge of the containment array, his mind racing, his thoughts full of a panicked jumble of the things he is supposed to do in case of the worst. Zetsu can be restrained if they all act quickly; luckily, he can already tell that the argument of the sealing masters has broken up, if just from the annoying flash of Uzumaki-san taking the initiative to evacuate both Jiraiya-san and the protesting Hokage.

“Wall him in,” Itachi says, his flat, annoyed tone coming from just behind Gaara, and Gaara is pulverizing the compacted rock of the cave floor to do just that when he registers the high, affronted sound of Shukaku telling him off.

“Just what are you stupid humans trying to do?!” Shukaku squeals. “These forms can feel weight, you know! There’s sand in my eyes!”

“Kazekage-sama,” Son Goku says, his tone frigid despite being somewhat choked. “Let us out of this miserable sand trap, _immediately_.”

Itachi’s hand clamps down on Gaara’s shoulder, an obvious warning. “Has Zetsu escaped?” he asks, his tone gentle, his grip the precise opposite. “I felt the seal fail, you see.”

“Zetsu is no longer your problem, Uchiha,” Kurama says, his tone taking on a distinctly gloating note. “Sage knows why you were so afraid of him; he wasn’t even a proper mouthful for me.”

Gaara, still wary, does not let the thick, fast-rotating sand shield falter. Even so, in the next moment, he feels something begin to press through; luckily, he recognizes the escapee as Shukaku, who has enough experience with Gaara’s Razor Wall jutsu to know just how to wriggle through it. “Kurama-san,” Gaara says, “did you just… _eat_ the immortal?”

“Immortal?” Matatabi says, sounding offended. It takes Gaara a moment to realize just why her voice is bothering him; it is only when he looks to the left and sees her sleek, two-tailed form settling down at the feet of her shocked-looking jinchuuriki that he realizes she somehow managed to escape the sand wall without his noticing. “Hmph! _Immutable_ is much more like it. A cheap old trick, a useless, weak, conditional form of stasis.”

Hearing that, even Gaara can immediately understand why sealing the immortal, no, the immutable form of Zetsu resulted in the creature’s sad state once it was unsealed. You don’t nest storage seals inside of each other, not if you want to be able to retrieve your stored items intact; apparently, the same principle applies when what you’re storing is an incredibly dangerous immortal creature.

“It was delicious,” Shukaku says, flopping at Gaara’s feet. “So much chakra! The texture, well, that couldn’t be helped. I can only imagine how tasty it would have been if it was nice and fresh…” Then, sensing Itachi’s blank stare, Shukaku twists around to stare back up at him, and licks his chops and asks: “Are there any more?”

The complex expression on Itachi’s face makes it very, very difficult for Gaara to lower the wall without bursting into laughter. Somehow, he manages.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully if you've made it this far, you have enjoyed this giant ball of flangst. Comments and kudos are love <3


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